From dream to nightmare! After her Homeric – and promising – victory against Marta Kostyuk (6-7, 7-6, 7-6 in three and a half hours) on Sunday, the French Elsa Jacquemot (60th in the world) was eliminated from the Australian Open tennis tournament in the second round this Wednesday.
A defeat in two short quick sets (6-1, 6-2), against the modest Kazakhstani Yulia Putintseva (94th), marked above all by the astonishing behavior of the Frenchwoman.
From the outset Jacquemot, who reached the round of 16 at Roland-Garros last year, seemed to be fighting more against herself and her camp than against her opponent on the other side of the net.
After losing the first game of the match – a long and fierce game lasting around ten minutes – the Lyonnaise turned to her loved ones present in the stands, visibly very upset with her coach Simon Blanc, guilty, in her eyes, of not having prepared her tactically enough for the match even though he knew the opponent of the day very well having trained her for a long time in the past.
“Something external that disturbed me”
“The tactics are rotten. Ah, it’s very strong », she said to her clan after two breaks behind in the first round. “She makes me enter into patterns that we haven’t even talked about, he trained her for years, it’s still crazy,” continued the Frenchwoman beside herself.
Faced with these comments and the annoyance of his player, Blanc preferred to leave the stands. Also present were Alizé Cornet, the captain of the French team, Arnaud Restifo, Jacquemot’s agent, who stayed to encourage her and try to calm her down. In vain!
After the match, the 22-year-old quickly spoke to Eurosport. “From the first game, I got a little out of my game. There was something external that disturbed me. I don’t necessarily want to talk about it. So, I am disappointed with my performance today. It felt like there was something bothering me. It’s true that I have to learn later to stay focused and that it doesn’t disturb me as much, even if there are external things…”
The debrief with his coach promises to be tough…
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