Boulter’s upset at being bounced out
KATIE BOULTER was upset with her performance as she went out of the Australian Open in the first round.
Boulter had high hopes in Melbourne – having claimed two victories at the Gippsland Trophy and taken a set off world No.3 Naomi Osaka last week – but they were emphatically dashed as Russian Daria Kasatkina triumphed 6-1, 6-4.
‘I’m pretty disappointed,’ Boulter said. ‘I never really got going, I felt quite uncomfortable out on the court.
‘I put a lot of pressure on myself when really there was absolutely no need to.
‘The conditions were slightly different today, it felt heavier, the ball was bouncing higher. She has a different kind of swing to a lot of girls and I struggled to
I put a lot of pressure on myself when really there was absolutely no need to
just get some rhythm and get into the match. I’m pretty upset about it.’
The first set lasted just 23 minutes, with Boulter spraying 18 unforced errors compared to just two winners. She improved in the second set and saved four match points in fighting back from 2-5 to 4-5, only to drop serve again.
Having broken into the world’s top 100 two years ago, Boulter is down at 315 in the rankings after being plagued by a back problem.
Although travel restrictions make it difficult to get the regular action to hasten her rise up the rankings, the Leicestershire player remains confident in her ability to do well.
‘I’ve worked so hard on my body, so firstly I really hope I’m going to stay fit,’ she said. ‘That’s my No.1 goal for this year as it is any year.
‘As I feel I showed last week – unfortunately not this week – the game is there to beat some of these top players and I feel like I have to maintain it longer.
‘The more positive weeks I get, the more I feel like I’ll get towards my goal.’
JURGEN KLOPP has urged his players not to view the defeat to Manchester City as a ‘catastrophe’ as he believes some of the football they played would have served them well in this inconsistent season.
The lopsided look of a 4-1 scoreline was due to two uncharacteristic errors by goalkeeper Alisson but Klopp was keen to take the positives out of a performance which left them ten points behind the leaders and with their Premier League title defence seemingly in tatters.
‘We have training, we have recovery and all that stuff. Tuesday will be off. I prefer that (Monday) we speak again about it in the right manner, that we have the day off then with the right mindset,’ said the German.
‘I don’t like it too much but it happened from time to time. If you are at home we all think our own stuff, we think,”‘Oh my God, it’s a catastrophe”.
‘There are worse things in the world than losing a football game. For us, it is very important, no doubt about that. But I want them to understand
and to know the football we played in long periods of the game, if we would have played this football more often then we would have more points.’
Klopp’s immediate concern must be to stave off the challenge for their top-four place which is likely to come from Chelsea and West Ham, who are a point behind, Everton, three adrift with two matches in hand, and Tottenham, who are four back.
It is not the way Liverpool’s first title defence in 30 years was expected to go but Klopp remains upbeat.
‘Really, criticism is always like this.
Somebody can tell me whatever went wrong, stuff like this, I know the things probably before so that’s not a problem. We take that,’ he added.
‘But it is not the last game of the season so there are a lot of games to come. If we would have played more often as we played (against City), we would not be ten points behind but it is not a dreamland or whatever.
‘We have to accept the reality and we do that. We will fight for results. We did that (against City). We didn’t get it because of our own fault but the good stuff we should keep.’