{"id":22629,"date":"2025-07-25T08:27:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T08:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/22629\/"},"modified":"2025-07-25T08:27:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T08:27:08","slug":"maria-sakkari-explains-why-shes-scared-of-playing-on-grass-and-what-is-weird-about-the-tennis-balls-for-the-us-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/22629\/","title":{"rendered":"Maria Sakkari explains why she&#8217;s &#8216;scared&#8217; of playing on grass and what is &#8216;weird&#8217; about the tennis balls for the US Open"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Maria Sakkari has made her thoughts clear on grass court tennis.<\/p>\n<p>The Greek player was knocking on the door of becoming a top player, especially after she reached the 2021 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetennisgazette.com\/tag\/us-open\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">US Open<\/a> semifinals.<\/p>\n<p>But Sakkari has struggled to make it to the next level and she has just two <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetennisgazette.com\/tag\/wta\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">WTA<\/a> titles to her name, none of which have come on grass.<\/p>\n<p>With the grass court season now in the rearview mirror, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetennisgazette.com\/tag\/maria-sakkari\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Maria Sakkari<\/a> shared what she really thinks about playing on the stick and low-bouncing surface.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" loading=\"lazy\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/GettyImages-2222647018-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"Maria Sakkari aims to return a shot at the 2025 Wimbledon Championships\" class=\"wp-image-114643\" \/>Photo by KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV\/AFP via Getty ImagesMaria Sakkari explains the \u2018scary\u2019 thing about playing on grass<\/p>\n<p>Sakkari made no secret of her love for hard courts, and her last title came on the concrete at the Guadalajara Open in 2023.<\/p>\n<p>Her first title came on the clay in Rabat back in 2019, but Sakkari has yet to attain any success on grass.<\/p>\n<p>Following her victory over <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetennisgazette.com\/tag\/emma-navarro\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Emma Navarro<\/a> in Washington D.C., Sakkari shares her view on grass court tennis and why she finds it scary.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou know, just being scared that something\u2019s going to happen to your body, playing on that surface [grass],\u201d the 30-year-old told reporters.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou know, hard court is my best surface, for sure. I love clay, as well, but I\u2019ll take hard court any day.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m just so excited, because I had a week off. It\u2019s really helped me. I feel recharged and ready to go for, you know, full calendar now hopefully.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" loading=\"lazy\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/GettyImages-2226717188-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"Maria Sakkari hits a backhand against Emma Navarro at the Mubadala Citi DC Open 2025 - Day 3\" class=\"wp-image-114649\" \/>Photo by Scott Taetsch\/Getty ImagesMaria Sakkari has mixed emotions about the tennis balls for the US Open<\/p>\n<p>Sakkari secured one of her biggest wins of the season at the Citi Open.<\/p>\n<p>She took on Navarro, who was playing in front of her home crowd in America\u2019s capital city, and the former top 10 player stunned them into silence.<\/p>\n<p>Sakkari claimed a tight first set and the second set followed suit, as it was decided via a tiebreak, which she dominated to claim her third win in four meetings against Navarro.<\/p>\n<p>Though she was happy with the victory, Sakkari commented on the balls being used at the US Open and the tournaments leading up to it, and she is unsure what to make of them.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey feel weird. They fly sometimes and sometimes they stay on your racquet,\u201d Sakkari added. \u201cI have mixed emotions about the ball. Obviously I\u2019ve been serving well, so I\u2019m not going to lie they have been good for my serve.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI just learn how to adapt with every ball used at every tournament, because that\u2019s the truth that we play with different balls every week. It is what it is and we have to take it.\u201d<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Maria Sakkari has made her thoughts clear on grass court tennis. The Greek player was knocking on the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22630,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,18657,82,593,2084],"class_list":{"0":"post-22629","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-maria-sakkari","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-tennis","13":"tag-us-open"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22629\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}