What a difference a year makes for CoCo Vandeweghe. Last year, she made the Semifinals at the US Open.
And now in 2018, she is out of the Open after one match.
Injuries curtailed the native New Yorker as she dropped the first round match to Kirsten Flipkens, 6-3 7-6 (3).
She now has a five match losing streak.
“I think rustiness has played a part in important moments,” said Vandeweghe, who suffered her fifth US Open first-round loss. “Instead of putting the nail in the coffin, [I] missed second-serve returns, double faults, that’s definitely cheap, free points.
“I think rust has a big part of it. I’ve been dying to get match play, but physically because of injury, I haven’t be
Vandeweghe had her ankles worked on twice today during the match. She said she was pain few for the first time the last couple of weeks, but because of the injuries, it was impossible to get the proper practice in.
“We’re high-functioning machines and it takes a while to recover and get back to peak performance,” Vandeweghe said. “There’s not much when I’m playing two months of the whole year.
“This tournament was a huge question mark for me if I was even gonna compete. My first hit after Wimbledon was in Cincinnati about two days before I played so it’s been a roller coaster. I’ve only been pain free for two weeks.”
That doesn’t mean the native New Yorker will pull the plug on this season. Vandeweghe said it’s too costly to skip the Asian swing.
“Unfortunately, we have to play Asia and it would probably cost me more money not to play those tournaments than actually play them,” Vandeweghe said. “So I will be playing China”en able to. I’m already looking for 2019. I can throw 2018 into the garbage can real fast.”
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