Jodie Burrage ‘in a good spot’ despite Australian Open defeat by Coco Gauff
Share:
Jodie Burrage believes she is “only just getting started” after successfully returning to grand slam competition following a long injury layoff. The British player leaves Melbourne full of confidence after being extremely competitive with Coco Gauff in her 6-3, 7-5 second round loss to the third seed at the Australian Open on Wednesday.
“I’m going to take a lot of confidence from the fact that she’s No 3 in the world,” said Burrage. “I felt like I didn’t have a great start. Then I got myself back into it. The game that she broke me, I gave it to her a little bit with those volley [errors]. I’m there with her and I felt like I was in that.
“I’m just starting back from my injury layoff so I think it’s really positive. I’ve got to see it like that because if you had said this to me three, four months ago, I would have taken it for sure, both hands. A lot of things that I could have improved, but also a lot of confidence taken from it.”.
Burrage had a difficult start against Gauff, immediately falling 3-0 down, but gradually worked her way into the match by demonstrating her heavy, potent groundstrokes throughout the second set. Burrage served for the second set at 5-3 before becoming nervous and lost the final four games of the match.
“I really felt like I should have taken that second,” said Burrage. “I feel like it would have been interesting to see a third set to see if I could carry that on. But this is the level that I want to be playing and this is the level that I think I can be playing. It’s the start of the year. We are three weeks in and I feel like I’m in a good spot. So as long as I can stay on the court, I’m excited to see what this year brings.”.
