Handling pressure still a “work in progress” for France’s big hope Caroline Garcia

The No 5 seed won the WTA Finals last year but has yet to go beyond the last eight at Roland-Garros

Caroline Garcia of France during a training session of Roland-Garros 2023 – Zuma / Panoramic

May 26, 2023

Pressure is amplified for French players when they play in their home Grand Slam event and when you’re the country’s leading player, it’s amped up even more.

It’s something Caroline Garcia is used to, but that doesn’t mean it gets any easier to shut out the noise and focus only on the job at hand.

Seeded No 5 this year, the Frenchwoman knows she has the ability to go far. She reached the semi-finals at the US Open last year but has yet to go beyond the last eight in Paris. At the Australian Open this year, she talked about the battle to handle the pressure, a task that’s ongoing.

“Work in progress still,” she told reporters at Roland-Garros on Friday. “Learning and talking about it, learning about it, trying to manage things better and better.

“It’s work in progress. I mean, I can’t say it’s like an on-and-off things. I think it’s better. We will see where it brings me.”

Garcia: Winning Roland-Garros “top of my list”

Garcia said she was younger than 10 when she first started watching the French Open properly and admits that winning the title would be the ultimate victory.

“It’s on the top of my list, obviously, and it is the case for any player, but also even more for a French player,” she said.

Garcia, who begins against China’s Wang Xiyu, won the season-ending WTA Finals in 2022 but has struggled for consistency and top form so far this year.

“It’s sport, it’s tennis,” she said. “Obviously it’s not easy to do a copy-paste of what is happening in the couple months before. But it is also part of it, and last year made me able to do some great things at the end of the year, starting very low.

“So I’m just trying to be patient, having a good mindset and work hard and being positive, as positive as I can. Yeah, learn from what I can.”