Paula Badosa arrives at this Mutua Madrid Open in resplendent form. After reaching the semi-finals in Stuttgart, the Spaniard climbed to No. 2 in the WTA Rankings for the first time in her career, and this week in the Caja M\u00e1gica will mark her first appearance playing in that lofty position. \u201cIt looks very different, it\u2019s completely different to being number 70. You\u2019re much more exposed, you\u2019re under pressure as a favourite\u201d, she said. Quoting Serena William\u2019s phrase \u2018pressure is a privilege<\/i>\u2019, Badosa called being among the best in the world a \u2018problem\u2019,\u00a0in inverted commas<\/i>, and admitted that she has to \u201clearn to manage it because everything\u2019s gone so quickly\u201d.<\/p>\n
Badosa will play her opener at this year\u2019s Mutua Madrid Open tomorrow against world number 25 Veronika Kudermetova. It will not be an easy match for the Spaniard, who has a record of three defeats and just one win over the Russian. Badosa called the clash \u201cvery difficult and very complicated\u201d and asked for all the support she can get tomorrow in the Manolo Santana Stadium: \u201cI\u2019m going to have to adapt to the conditions of centre court very quickly and I\u2019m going to try, between me, my team and the fans, to get through the match\u201d.<\/p>\n
Her opening encounter against Kudermetova will be the first of many hurdles if the Spaniard wants to get her hands on the trophy. Simona Halep, Ons Jabeur, defending champion Aryna Sabalenka and Karolina Pliskova are all on her side of the draw and will be tough nuts to crack en route to the final. \u201cI\u2019m going to have very tough matches from the start, but I\u2019m ready, I\u2019ve played a lot of matches and I really can\u2019t wait to play at home\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n
On the opposite side of the draw, one notable player will be missing as world number 1 Iga Swiatek has withdrawn from this year\u2019s Mutua Madrid Open without playing a point due to a shoulder injury. \u201cI would have met her in the final, and to reach the final I have to treat every match like a final. I have to look at my side because it\u2019s very tough and hopefully I\u2019ll have the problem of being in the final\u201d, Badosa added in this regard.<\/p>\n
The Spaniard is defending her semi-final result from 2021, when she came to Madrid as a wildcard and ended up winning the hearts of the fans in the Caja M\u00e1gica. It was an event that she says gave her the confidence in herself to keep growing as a player and that she has particular affection for the courts: \u201cthe \u2018Arantxa\u2019 has a special place in my heart, I had some amazing matches there. But obviously playing on centre court is even more special and I can\u2019t wait to start there tomorrow\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Paula Badosa arrives at this Mutua Madrid Open in resplendent form. After reaching the semi-finals in Stuttgart, the Spaniard climbed to No. 2 in the WTA Rankings for the first time in her career, and this week in the Caja M\u00e1gica will mark her first appearance playing in that lofty position. \u201cIt looks very different, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":75800,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"mc4wp_mailchimp_campaign":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[298,17,71],"class_list":["post-75799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mutua-news","tag-2022-en","tag-mutua-madrid-open-en","tag-paula-badosa-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/desarrollo.mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/desarrollo.mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/desarrollo.mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desarrollo.mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desarrollo.mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/desarrollo.mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75799\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desarrollo.mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/desarrollo.mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desarrollo.mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desarrollo.mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}