There are press conferences – and there are press conferences with Caroline Garcia. The charming Frenchwoman was also in a good mood in Stuttgart and doesn’t have to put any pressure on herself at least at the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix.
By Florian Goosmann from Stuttgart
Caroline Garcia was then simply honest. Whether the start into the new tennis year was a little more difficult than usual, after she put down this famous 2017 season finish. “Yep”, Garcia replied – and grinned broadly. “I’d like to say no, but it just is.”
Anything else would be a miracle. In September, the Frenchwoman was still in 20th place in the world, then she started: victory in Wuhan, victory in Beijing, last-minute qualification for Singapore and there, after a dramatic victory against Caroline Wozniacki, the semi-final. Wage: Eighth place at the end of the year, currently the 24-year-old even ranks seventh.
Garcia continued to think that was difficult to put into words. “The outside world treats you differently. Sometimes you have to deal with things you didn’t care about before.” The weeks in Asia had of course been great. “But I was so not ready for this.”
Garcia inevitably knows about early, unexpected pressure. Keyword: Andy Murray. “The girl Sharapova plays will one day become the number one in the world – Caroline Garcia. What a player,” Murray twittered with a good heart in May 2011, when Garcia first took the Big Stage at the French Open. For the then 17-year-old, however, the hymns of praise meant pressure. Garcia was the number 188 in the world at the time when she took a sentence from Sharapova in Paris, and it went up only slowly. In 2013 she cracked the Top 100, in 2014 the Top 50, in 2015 the Top 30.
To date, Garcia has celebrated her great successes in doubles alongside Kristina Mladenovic, for example the victory at the French Open 2016, the final entry at the US Open, second place in the double world. She wanted to concentrate more on her individual career, Garcia told Garcia, said Mladenovic first objectively and gratefully for the time together; later she complained about the way. Only a text message was apparently worth it to Garcia – not the fine French way. Also the Fed Cup renouncement was not well received by their compatriots.
If you only look at the results, Garcia’s decision seems right. With their victory over Maria Sharapova on Tuesday in Stuttgart – the first in the fifth clash – a circle came full circle for 2011, the French Open duel and the Murray Tweet. In Stuttgart on Thursday Garcia will meet young star Marta Kostyuk, the 15-year-old, who has played her way from 523th to 158th place since the start of the season and survived the qualification in Stuttgart, among other things after a victory over Garcia’s compatriot Alizé Cornet.
Garcia has long overlooked the possible win at the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix, which is parked to the right behind the pitch, and she gained further appetite when visiting the Porsche Museum, “the best activity I have ever had to participate in,” she said with a laugh. “I want to go back there. I like cars, Porsche is great, and I’ve seen a lot of cars from the past,” she enthused, cheering after victories in a flying pose and caring for the hashtag #FlyWithCaro in her tweets.
Only when she was supposed to describe her driving style, there was a little problem. “I can’t – I don’t drive,” Garcia explained. In France one needs a lot of time for the driving licence, a difficult thing for the constantly travelling tennis professional. Cancelled is not postponed. She wants to drive because she loves cars, “so the plan is to get her driver’s license, then win the car.”
Somehow a way to take the pressure off – at least in Stuttgart.