After her beautiful win in round 1 of Transylvania Open – 6-7, 6-2, 6-3 against Harmony Tan -, Gabi Ruse spoke about the importance of this match for her self-confidence.
“I came to Cluj at the last minute. I changed my schedule a little because I wanted to go to America. Is just that I dropped a lot in the rankings and didn’t enter tournaments anymore, so I had to change something at the last second. I’d like to thank Patrick (Ciorcilă) for offering me this chance because I let him know very late.”
Gabi then spoke about the importance of a hard-fought victory: she came back after losing the first set, then won five consecutive games in the final of the decider.
“I am very happy that I was able to win such a match. It’s an important one for me because lately, I’ve lost by little margins, so I think this match is very important for my self-confidence.”
After losing the first set, Gabi realized that she was thinking too much about her recent defeats.
“And I said to myself: OK, the worst thing that could happen is losing another match the same way if I don’t change something. So I tried to start the set more positively. At the end of the first set, I was feeling a little bit tired, because it had been a long one, but then I thought about what happened in the last months when I worked really hard and it didn’t show in the results. And I said to myself: Ok, the time will come, even if it’s not now, but at least let’s change something.”
The thought that she could win in front of her home fans helped her. Now she feels happy she was able to overcome the pressure of playing at home.
“This was a huge pressure for a long time. Now I’m getting used to the idea. But that’s exactly why it was also very difficult for me to play in FedCup; for me, FedCup was terrible. I really enjoyed it, but I was being very emotional and I couldn’t reach even 20% of my game capacity.”
This time, however, she feels that she knew how to absorb the energy of the audience. And she believes that support mattered a lot.
“After many years of tennis I realized that when you’re emotional, your body actually shuts down. And you can’t play anything anymore. Today I came with a different mentality and I told myself that the worst thing that could happen is to lose, and people are going to criticize me anyway, so I tried to play as well as I could.”
Gabi is looking forward to the next match, the one with No. 7 seed Xiyu Wang.
“I haven’t played against her before, but I know her, she’s an amazing girl. Of course, I’m tired, after today’s two and a half hours, but lately, I’ve been training a lot in the physical aspect. I have a break tomorrow, so I’ll try to recover as best I can. Most important is that I feel no pain.”
Darth Gabi saves the day for the 🇷🇴!
Gabriela Ruse gets the W in a gripping encounter with Harmony Tan, coming back from a break down in the decider: 6-7, 6-2, 6-3.#TO2022 pic.twitter.com/5r8HmLCFJE
— Transylvania Open (@TransylvaniaOpn) October 11, 2022
