Samantha Stosur isn’t feeling the clock ticking on her quest for a second grand slam title despite another opportunity passing by at her favourite major tournament.
The world No.9 was left bitterly disappointed after crashing out in the third round of the French Open, her 40th grand slam, at the hands of Serbian Jelena Jankovic on Saturday.
With many viewing Roland Garros as Stosur’s best opportunity to add to her 2011 US Open triumph, she admitted it was frustrating having to wait a year for another crack on the red clay.
But while Stosur admits at 29 she’s no spring chicken, she believes there’s still plenty of time to achieve more success at the highest level.
“I know I’m getting older and I know there’s only so many grand slams left,” Stosur told AAP after the loss.
“But I’m not 30 yet and players are playing well into there 30s, so I’m not too worried about running out of time.
“You do want things to happen now though, you don’t want to have to wait another year for another chance at events like this.
“But there’s only one winner at the end of the day, so there’s a lot of other disappointed players as well and you’ve got to be able to bounce back.”
The 3-6 6-3 6-4 defeat ended Australia’s involvement in singles at Roland Garros 2013, with Stosur the only member of a seven-strong contingent to reach the third round.
It continued a frustrating season for Stosur.
She came into Paris on the back of a disastrous Australian summer and a stop-start claycourt campaign marred by a troublesome calf injury.
Despite that, she held high hopes of going deep into the draw after feeling like she was back to full fitness and encouraged by some strong recent claycourt form.
Not to mention her outstanding record at Roland Garros, where she reached the semi-finals for the third time last year and was runner up to Francesca Schiavone in 2010 – beating Jankovic en route to the final.
“It certainly hurts,” Stosur said.
“I do feel like I’m capable of having a good tournament here and the third round is not where I wanted to end up.”
Stosur started strongly against Jankovic, looking sharp in the first set before a mid-game fadeout allowed the 18th seed back into the contest.
At 3-0 down in the deciding set, after losing six straight games, things looked bleak but Stosur showed some mental toughness to fight back to lead 4-3.
The late stages were tense, with Stosur saving three match points before Jankovic eventually clinched it to set up a fourth-round meeting with American Jamie Hampton, who upset Czech seventh seed Petra Kvitova.
Stosur will now turn her attention to Wimbledon, though with a poor recent record there she may already have one eye on the US Open.
While disappointing on the whole, Australia’s French Open campaign featured encouraging maiden wins in grand slam matches for teenagers Ashleigh Barty and Nick Kyrgios.
Both were beaten by much higher-ranked opponents in the second round.
Bernard Tomic, Lleyton Hewitt, Marinko Matosevic and James Duckworth were all defeated in round one.
