Sam Stosur made no excuses after her shock third round defeat to Petra Kvitova at the Australian Open.
Stosur was simply outplayed by a very impressive Kvitova who refused to be overawed by either her illustrious opponent or the partisan crowd on Rod Laver Arena. She attacked Stosur's heavy topspin serves with ruthless efficiency and crucially maintained an icy calm on the pressure points, particularly towards the end of the crucial first set.
Stosur's game fell apart a little in the second set but Kvitova did not give her a sniff of a chance to get back into the match as she raced away to win 7-6, 6-3.
With all the home hopes out of the tournament by the end of the third round there is sure to be plenty of negative press in the Australian media but Stosur refused to blame the pressure for her early exit.
“I'm obviously very disappointed to not win. But I actually thought I played really well. It's hard to walk off the court thinking you played well. It was so close, I mean, that first set. Don't really know how I lost it, to be honest. Felt like I started playing a bit better and was probably on top of her and then all of a sudden it was gone and I was a set down. I thought she played extremely well pretty much the whole way through."
“I actually felt good this week, you know. I went about practicing the way I wanted to, playing the matches, the three matches I played here I felt really good and settled and comfortable out there. Really enjoyed it. You know, I know there was a little bit of pressure, more eyes on me and everything that I do. But I don't think that distracted me in any way."
