No 3 seed Iva Jovic leaned on what she calls a “goldfish memory” to pull through the biggest moments and book her place in the semifinals of the ASB Classic, defeating Belgian qualifier Sofia Costoulas 6-2 7-6(6) in Friday’s quarterfinal.
Jovic looked on course for a routine straight-sets victory after taking the first set 6-2, but the 20-year-old Costoulas refused to go away.
The Belgian qualifier lifted her level in the second set and even served for it, only for Jovic to break back and force a tiebreak. There, the American teenager again had to dig deep, recovering from a 4-0 deficit to close out the match.
Asked what proved decisive, Jovic pointed to her willingness to stay on the front foot in difficult conditions.
“The key was just being aggressive,” Jovic said. “She wasn’t missing a lot. She was playing with a lot of spin, a lot of shape.
“So I really had to win every point out there and just moving my feet in the wind. It’s tricky, it’s swirling in all different directions, so it was hard for me to find my footing at times, but I’m glad I was able to do it in the end.”
What pleased her most, though, was her resilience when momentum threatened to swing.
“I was most pleased with the fight, the reset,” Jovic said. “There were a couple good games, and then I would throw in a couple sloppy errors. So I’m glad that I was able to bring it back just in time.”
That ability to step up under pressure was on full display late in the match, as it was when she beat Sara Bejlek 7-6 6-4 in the second round.
“When I feel that my back’s against the wall, I kick it up a gear,” she said.
“But I’m working on trying to get that gear all the time so that I don’t get myself in those positions in the first place. That’s what me and my coach have been talking about, just trying to keep that intensity throughout the whole time.”
Underlying it all, Jovic believes, is her mindset of quickly letting go of mistakes.
“I try to have a little bit of a goldfish memory,” she said. “It’s really one point at a time, and I’ve turned around many matches, and I’ve had matches turned against me many times. So I know that every little point, every little fight, can make a difference. That’s what I was able to do in the tiebreak.”
She expanded on the idea, noting that perfection is impossible in tennis.
“Tennis is a sport where you lose a lot of points, and you really can’t be perfect,” Jovic said.
“So you have to forget about the sloppy, silly things that you’ve done and just focus on the next point, because that’s really all you can control.”