Stosur still hopes to win a French Open

 

By Darren Walton, 9 Jun 2012 Darren Walton is a Roar Guru

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 French Open, sam stosur, Samantha Stosur, Tennis

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Shattered Samantha Stosur has vowed to use the pain of another French Open heartache as the spur to one day reign supreme in Paris.

Stosur struggled to explain her 5-7 1-6 6-3 semi-final shocker against Sara Errani, a devastating loss that drew comparisons with her title match defeat two years ago against another Italian underdog, Francesca Schiavone.

Stosur had led Schiavone 4-0 head-to-head before their 2010 final showdown in Paris and the US Open champion was also unbeaten in five previous encounters with Errani.

But in a recurring nightmare, Stosur committed tennis suicide with a staggering 49 unforced errors on a windswept Court Philippe Chatrier to virtually hand Errani a free ticket to her maiden grand slam final on Saturday.

“I needed to do more. I didn’t do it at the time when it really mattered,” Stosur said.

“It just sucks that it happened here today. You do it somewhere else you don’t maybe worry about it so much, but here it obviously hurts a lot more.”

While conceding she’d probably dwell on another huge opportunity lost for several days, Stosur refused to believe her surprise exit had been a career setback.

“I’ve had disappointing losses before. I have been through similar situations and been able to come back. I have no doubt I’ll be able to do that,” the 28-year-old said.

“Obviously you just don’t want to go through it at all, so the only choice is to think about what’s around the corner and how am I going to improve and remember what this feels like.

“You don’t want to have it happen again – or at least not for a very long time – but have I not reached my potential because of that? I don’t know.

“I still won a grand slam, so there are still good things. I have obviously been capable of it.”

While Stosur’s immediate focus is on Wimbledon starting on June 25, the three-times French Open semi-finalist and 2010 runner-up said her resolve to one day conquer the Paris clay was now even stronger.

“I’m going to come back next year and the year after and the year after. Hopefully one day I can win this tournament,” she said.

“I think it is obviously a great event for me and it suits me and all that. I’ve come close, but hopefully one day it will happen.”

With only five wins and one third-round showing in nine Wimbledon appearances, Stosur is realistic about her prospects of bouncing straight back at the All England Club later this month.

“I hope I can look forward to Wimbledon. That’s always been a very tough tournament for me,” she said.

“But in some ways that’s the beauty of tennis. You can have a really crap day and then there’s another tournament the next week and you get a chance to kind of redeem yourself very quickly.

“So I guess that’s the way you’ve got to look at it. If you are going to bounce back quickly from a disappointing loss, you’ve got to look at it with some sort of positiveness.

“And there’s a grand slam in another couple of weeks and that’s where you want to try and improve what went wrong today.”

Stosur will leapfrog Serena Williams to No.5 in the rankings after her latest run to the last four in Paris, but there’s no guarantee Wimbledon officials will seed the Queenslander above the four-times champion for the grasscourt slam.

AAP djw/NH

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