Samantha Stosur will remained marooned outside the world’s top 10 as she looks towards the US Open, despite matching her best performance at Wimbledon.
The Australian 14th seed reached the third round for only the second time in 11 attempts before falling 4-6 6-2 6-1 to 23rd-seeded German Sabine Lisicki on Saturday.
Despite missing a chance to reach the last 16 for the first time, Stosur was keen to take positives from what she declared her best performance at the grass-court grand slam.
“As disappointing as it is, I have to say this is probably the best I’ve felt walking away from Wimbledon,” Stosur said.
As well as missing out on a fourth-round clash with top seed Serena Williams, Stosur also denied herself a chance to quickly reclaim a spot in the top 10 WTA rankings.
The 29-year-old dropped out for the first time in more than three years following her third-round exit at last month’s French Open, but she cannot move higher than No.11 after her latest defeat.
Still, Stosur is heading toward the US Open – where she was the 2011 champion – feeling she may have turned a corner in a year interrupted by form and fitness concerns.
Stosur will return home to Australia for the first time since January before preparing for the hard-court season.
“At least I feel like I’m kind of back on track now and feeling a little bit better about any tennis again, which is a good feeling,” Stosur said.
“Now it’s just a matter of practising hard and doing all these things, and then hopefully I can have a good run over there.”
Stosur spoke this week of feeling a new “clarity” on grass, traditionally her least-favoured surface, and said she benefited from leaving her French Open disappointment behind her.
Dominant wins over Slovakian Anna Schmiedlova and Russian Olga Puchkova, and a strong first-set performance against Lisicki, have her looking forward to returning to the grass next season.
“It’s not the round where I would have liked to have got to but I have to be happy with the way I played,” Stosur said.
“It’s certainly a huge improvement.
“At the end of the day, that’s all you can ask.”
