Daria Gavrilova was in a confessional mood in her post-match press conference as she attempted to process her heart-breaking loss to Petra Martic at Wimbledon.
Little more than a month after also falling in the opening round at Roland Garros, the new Australian No.1 suffered a gut-wrenching 6-4 2-6 10-8 loss to Croatian qualifier Petra Martic.
Despite her steady rankings rise to 20th in the world, Gavrilova has won just four Grand Slam matches in her past five majors – and only one outside of Australia.
“I think I can’t really cope with the Grand Slam pressure,” said the former junior world No.1.
“Like I seriously feel like I’m more intense on the court and I was getting very hot and I was like ‘oh my god, what’s happening?’
“I never sweat and I was feeling hot for some reason and I never have to feel like ‘oh my god, why is my grip so sticky?’ and stuff like that.
“Before the match, I was calm and I had great preparation and in my pre-match warm-up I didn’t miss a ball.”
The 23-year-old’s candid confession came despite the Russian-born, Melbourne-based talent storming to the second week at the past two Australian Opens.
“I was thinking the same after the match but, I don’t know why I play well in Australia,” Gavrilova said.
“I’m more familiar and I stay at home and then I play night matches. It’s almost more pressure there, but I almost don’t feel it. I embrace it.”
Gavrilova said she may consider turning to a sports psychologist but hoped to conquer her demons without needing to.
She battled for more than two-and-a-half hours before going down to the resurgent Martic, who continued her excellent grasscourt form after coming through the qualifying rounds.
Martic had a few weeks before advanced to the fourth round at Roland Garros and was mere points from the quarterfinals before falling 7-5 in the third to Elina Svitolina.