“I was getting stuck there for a while and I felt like it was yesterday’s match in the third set where I felt like I found that feeling, that mental feeling, where I just went after the match in the third set,” Sherif said.
“I focused on every point, and I got that feeling that I didn’t feel in a while. I told my coach after the match, ‘That’s it. I got it, I know how I need to play, I know how that mentality has to be on the court’.
“I think I translated that today and I closed out very well because a lot of matches that I lost lately, I would win the first set and the second set would get complicated even though I’m controlling everything. I got that confidence to kill it today and that’s what I’m very happy for.”
She struggled to remember when she had last felt such a feeling, despite having reached a pair of WTA 125 semifinals on clay this year in Antalya and Dubrovnik.