Jarmila Gajdosova has launched an extraordinary rant following her first-round exit at the Australian Open, claiming constant media focus on her on-court woes now has her 'second-guessing' herself as a player.
Competing at Melbourne Park for the seventh time on Tuesday, having made six previous first-round exits since first competing at the event in 2006, the naturalised Australian failed to break her duck as she was beaten 6-4 6-2 by Russian No.27 seed Maria Kirilenko.
The former world No.24, who sat at No.39 in the rankings before the year's opening Grand Slam began on Monday, was not without her chances in the Hisense Arena duel as she had seven break points.
But Gajdosova, who was married to former Australian player Sam Groth until midway through last year, failed to convert any of those opportunities while Kirilenko was presented with three and won them all.
That was largely the difference in the match as Kirilenko broke in the first game of each set to establish an advantage and hardly let up thereafter, even though Gajdosova did throw plenty at the Kirilenko serve in the second set.
But when she faced the media after the match it took little prompting for Gajdosova to lament the coverage she receives from the press, launching into her tirade after being asked if she can identify why she has such a woeful record at the tournament.
"I don't know, I mean, whenever I play, everybody questions my game," she said.
"Everybody keeps talking about my unforced errors, everybody keeps talking about (how) hot and cold I am all the time."
"So how would you feel going on the court knowing first thing they're gonna say (afterwards is), 'Ah,
you made 40 unforced errors, so that's why you lost'."
According to Gajdosova, who was far from done, her game is based around hitting winners and unforced errors are just an unfortunate by-product of that.
"My game is not based on making balls, it's plain and simple," she added.
"And, you know, if everybody keeps questioning, then I'm going to question my game as well."
"Obviously that's how it looked out there, because people keep talking about unforced errors, and I'm going to make unforced errors."
"Then I stop swinging, and then you're going to miss anyway."
"It's not easy no matter what I'm going to do, I'm never going to do the right thing for anybody, so why to bother?"
"You try and try, and everybody is going to say anything they want anyway."
Having compared her own game to those of Grand Slam winners Kim Clijsters, Maria Sharapova, Li Na and Petra Kvitova, Gajdosova continued on by admitting the attention has caused her problems on the court.
"It's not easy, I mean, in the end of the day you try to win (but) if you have these kind of things in your head, it's not easy," she said.
"You start questioning the shots before you even hit them (and) make errors in the end just because you change your mind on what you usually do, what you want to do, to things you shouldn't hit and you miss it anyway."
"So then you're like, 'Oh, I should have swung' instead of just try to make the ball because people tell me I make too many unforced errors or I try to hit the cover off the ball."
And asked if ignoring the TV, newspapers and radio