The Greek tennis player Maria Sakkari has said she is considering taking a break from tennis.
The 28-year-old Maria Sakkari, who is world’s No 8, was eliminated in the first round of the US Open 2023. On Monday, she lost by 0-2 (4:6, 4:6) to world’s No 71 Rebeka Masarova (Spain).
For Maria Sakkari, this was the third consecutive loss in the first round of the Grand Slam tournaments after defeats at the start of “Wimbledon” and “Roland Garros”. The Greek’s only win was at the Australian Open, where she reached the third round.
“I don’t think I’m playing well right now. But if I had performed just 5 or 10 percent better, I would have won this match. But these are matches that I have to win. I can’t afford to lose in the first round. I’ve had too many defeats like that this year and I’m sorry for that. I think my game is weak right now and I need to do something about it. I have the desire and it’s not the problem. I don’t know what to do, I’ll think about it but maybe I’ll take a brea”, said Maria Sakkari in an interview after the match.
Maria Sakkari has been ranked as high as world No 3 by the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA), which she first achieved on March 21, 2022. She has won one singles title on the WTA Tour at the 2019 Morocco Open. Although she has no titles won this season, she has five semi-finals at the WTA Tour – at the WTA 500 bett1open in Berlin, WTA 1000 Madrid Open, WTA 1000 Indian Wells Open, WTA 500 Qatar TotalEnergies Open, and WTA 250 Upper Austria Ladies Linz. The last season, she already was the runner-up at the WTA 1000 Guadalajara Open Akron and WTA 1000 Indian Wells Open.
