Mladenovic’s Diary: Double duty a blessing, not a burden

Kristina Mladenovic 09:59 17/02/2016
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  • Mladenovic and Garcia formed an exciting new doubles partnership this season

    Yesterday Caroline Garcia and I claimed our first win together in Dubai in doubles against Raquel Atawo and Abigail Spears.

    It wasn’t easy on paper because they are good players, they have won a lot of titles and were at the Masters in Singapore as well. They were unseeded, which was quite surprising and just shows how strong the draw is, so we’re really glad to get this win.

    Playing singles and doubles at the same tournament is something that I’m used to.

    It’s a routine and I’ve always looked at doubles as a perfect practice for my singles.

    For example, yesterday I wasn’t scheduled to play singles so I just had a little fitness in the morning and doubles in the evening and that’s great practice for me and I prefer that over going for a random practice with my coach.

    Nothing compares to having a competitive match because if you want to work on something, it’s quite easy to do it in practice because you don’t have this adrenaline, this pressure that you have to make it, while in doubles, I’m a competitor, I want to win. And we have also interesting and exciting goals with Caroline, so you push yourself to do better, it’s the way to improve.

    Because that serve you have to make on an important point, you can’t replace it by hitting 100 serves in practice. So it’s very good. Of course, I’m used to it now. I’m just having fun and I love it, there’s no doubt about it.

    Obviously it’s 2016 and we all know Rio is coming up but playing with Caroline was more of a personal project and we’re not just focused on qualifying for the Olympics together.

    There is Rio but there are also so many exciting events, grand slams, super nice tournaments, like here, that you dream of. As professionals, it’s your career, you want to win and bring as many trophies and titles that’s why it’s exciting that in tennis you have every week a tournament and an opportunity to do great.

    We’re very excited because there are so many great events like grand slams, which are also like a dream for any player. And of course Rio, it’s a main goal and we realise we’re lucky to be two great players in the same country so if we form a great team we have a chance to bring a medal which is a big thing to do for France.

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