Publications
Partners
Melbourne - Samantha Stosur said she wouldn't be going home and sulking despite failing to end a five-month win drought when she crashed out of the Australian Open's first round.
The former US Open winner disappointed home fans when she slumped 6-3, 3-6, 6-0 in a tough loss to Britain's Heather Watson on Tuesday, extending her barren streak.
Stosur, 32, was a first-round loser at last year's Australian Open and she hasn't won a match since the US Open in September, when she went out in round two.
But the 2011 Flushing Meadows winner and a former world number four said she could still turn things around, taking heart from her run to last year's French Open semi-finals.
"You get a bit sick of this feeling. It's one of those things. You're disappointed, you're upset, angry, what could I have done," she said.
"But at the end of the day I feel like I've done everything I can to try and prepare as best as I can. I gave it my best shot, and it didn't happen again.
"So you can kind of blow things out of proportion and think that everything's a disaster or you can kind of look at it maybe a little bit more logically."
Despite her successes abroad, Brisbane-born Stosur has often struggled at her home Grand Slam, where she hasn't gone beyond the fourth round in 14 visits.
Australian former player Jelena Dokic wondered whether Stosur, who also lost in the first round in Brisbane and Sydney this month, would ever perform in Melbourne.
"She hasn't done well here now for a few years and you have to wonder whether she will," Dokic said, according to the Herald Sun.
"I think she's still got quite a few years left where she can do well, but I think now that she hasn't done well here, it's almost like the pressure really is off because no one's expecting her to do well."
But Stosur said she was sure she could pull herself out of her tailspin.
"I've done it many times before. That's kind of the outlook I have to take. I mean, that's certainly one that's going to make me feel better rather than going home and sulking for the next six months," she said.
"I still feel like I've got good tennis in me. I don't feel like it was all bad today or it was a big disaster. I know there's obviously things I need to improve. I need to do it quickly, work out a few things. I do feel like it's still possible for me."
