Dayana Yastremska couldn’t help but giggle when her phone rang during her post-match briefing with reporters at Australian Open 2024.
“Sorry,” she said Thursday. “(It’s) father. I think he…wants to talk to me about the plan and stuff.”
The Ukrainian is now in a position to outline her future with greater clarity, even after her 6-4 6-4 loss to China’s Zheng Qinwen in the semifinals.
Emerging from qualifying and into the main draw as the World No.93, Yastremska’s ranking should soar to 29th when the new standings are released Monday. And four years after launching her own song ‘Thousands of me’, she pocketed several thousands of dollars – $AUD 990,000 for reaching the final four.
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The last time the 23-year-old found herself inside the top 30 came in April 2021, when memories, though, weren’t as sweet. A provisional ban for doping – she was cleared of any wrongdoing later in 2021 – sidelined the Odesa native.
“The ranking actually is playing a very big role, because the last four years I didn't know my schedule, I didn't know where I will get in, where I'm not going to get in,” said Yastremska. “I had to play, like, week after week.
“I can say I was living at the tournaments, and I didn't know exactly what my schedule is going to be.
“So now I, for example, know where I can play, where I can rest, and it's more comfortable to live like that when you know for a while your schedule.”
Her ranking had tumbled outside the top 150 last season amid the devastation in her war-torn nation and Yastremska exited in qualifying at both Wimbledon and the US Open. That, combined with seven straight first-round losses at majors, meant few would have predicted her feat at AO 2024.
But Yastremska spoke of being on a “mission” at Melbourne Park, where two of her countrywomen — Marta Kostyuk and Elina Svitolina — also reached the second week.
A missile, according to Yastremska, struck her grandmother’s home weeks before the year’s first Grand Slam.
Playing for her country has taken on more meaning yet also added to the pressure for a while. It wasn’t the lone reason her form dipped, however.
“I was putting a lot of pressure on myself in different ways, in the way that it's the war and I have to show better results for Ukraine,” said Yastremska. “And I wasn't playing just for myself in the beginning.
“Then I was putting pressure on myself that before when I was younger, I was much better than I am right now. In many ways, it's too long, if I will say (all the) pressure that I was putting on myself.
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“But now I decided that from this year no more pressure, no more high expectations for myself.
“Just be the way you are, and we will see how it's gonna go.”
It went fine in Melbourne, when Yastremska came within two victories of becoming the second qualifier to win a Grand Slam following Emma Raducanu at the 2021 US Open.
She displayed her ferocious ball striking straight away against Wimbledon champion Marketa Vondrousova and scored another sizable result in downing twice Australian Open winner Victoria Azarenka in the fourth round.
Yastremska crunched more winners than her opponent in every single match.
An abdominal injury surfaced against Zheng in what was her ninth outing, including qualifying. A medical timeout in the first set helped but “deep inside I felt that I would not be able, really, to give my everything, because there was not much to give,” she said.
Zheng prevailed on the majority of the pivotal points.
Yastremska led 2-0, then dropped serve in a game where she nearly escaped from 0-40. At 3-3, Yastremska again fell behind 0-40, got to deuce, and lost the game.
Holding a break point in the ensuing game, Zheng’s fine defence scuppered Yastremska to cap the first-set turnaround.
Yastremska overall converted two of 10 break points – her lowest tally of breaks in the main draw – after entering the semifinal having gone 21 for 38 on break points, a 55-per-cent conversion rate.
As she glanced ahead, Yastremska hoped simply to have as much fun as she did during her seismic three weeks in Melbourne. A new track is on the way, too.
“I don't want to stay, like, in the past and think about the way I played here, because every day is different, every tournament is different, every draw is different and everything is different,” said Yastremska.
“So I will be just focusing on a moment. I will be in the present, and there is nothing special that I will tell myself.
“I just want to improve, and the most important is I want to hold this feeling of myself, how I felt here about enjoying playing.”