Agnieszka Radwanska rues 'disaster' match against Tatjana Maria in US Open first round

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  • Former world No. 2 Agnieszka Radwanska rued a “terrible day” at the US Open after she suffered an opening-round defeat to Germany’s Tatjana Maria in scorching weather conditions on Monday.

    The Pole, who has slipped to No. 48 in the world and will drop out of the top-50 after the US Open, is having a forgettable 2018, in which she is currently 13-13 win-loss.

    Radwanska has won just one match in her last four tournaments and struggled with the heat during her 6-3, 6-3 loss to Maria (she had her vitals checked by a doctor during a medical timeout).

    “I felt terrible. I think I never felt that bad this year. Definitely just bad, dizzy, heavy legs, what can I say? It was a terrible match,” said the 29-year-old Radwanska.

    “I think both [heat and lack of match play played a factor]. One didn’t help the other thing, both things combined together. I didn’t do anything to win that match. I was more struggling myself than the opponent, when you have a feeling like this, you can’t really win the match.”

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  • Monday was arguably the hottest day of the past week at the US Open and Radwanska admits practicing in similar conditions wasn’t necessarily a luxury she had in the build-up to the tournament.

    “To be honest I was practicing whenever I had a court. And I didn’t really have a court for myself, I wasn’t seeded, so I didn’t have much choice. I was also going indoor because there were free courts there. But I think I these kind of days, it doesn’t matter what you did the other days because every day is a new day and sometimes you feel good and sometimes you just feel terrible and it’s not your day and you can’t help it,” she said.

    With her ranking expected to dip further, Radwanska has a tricky road ahead of her if she plans on climbing her way back up.

    “If it’s 30 or 50 the ranking, it doesn’t really matter at the moment. It’s just about the tournaments and having matches and being able to feel better on court, I think that’s the start, then you can think about the rest. I definitely need to do something just to feel 100 per cent on court and I think when I have that, it’s going to be better,” she says.

    “I didn’t really play bad in Cincinnati or New Haven, playing Pliskova and Kvitova, obviously I lost both of them but it was a totally different story. There is something here in the air that I don’t feel good. Especially today, that was the worst, I cannot really remember this kind of match, where everything falls apart. Something that doesn’t suit me here at this tournament but this year it was totally a disaster.”

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