Paula Badosa\u2019s face lights up whenever she talks about the Mutua Madrid Open. With her sixth participation in the women\u2019s main draw set to kick off on Wednesday, the Spaniard is once again the flagbearer for the home players.<\/p>\n
A semi-finalist at the Madrid WTA 1000 in 2021, she acknowledged that she feels \u201ca special connection with the fans\u201d, and admitted that she \u201cmissed it last year\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m so excited to be back here after a difficult year in which I couldn\u2019t enjoy myself much. I hope I can enjoy myself to the max here in my matches\u201d, said Badosa of the fitness problems that have been holding her back.<\/p>\n
The player who climbed to No. 2 in the world in 2022 is in a positive mood on her return to the Spanish capital, recognising that she \u201cfeels good\u201d and \u201ccan\u2019t wait to play\u201d, she also says she is managing the pain \u201cas well as possible and, if I can make it onto the court, then I\u2019m winning\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I was 16, Garbi\u00f1e Muguruza was already one of the best in the world and I loved her because she defined an era. Her style was very modern and I could see myself in her\u201d, explained Badosa after the recent retirement of her compatriot.<\/p>\n
The Catalonian wished the French Open (2016) and Wimbledon (2017) champion the best for the future. \u201cI was really sad, but she deserves to be happy. I was lucky enough to share a lot of practice sessions with her and we had a good relationship,\u201d she continued emotionally.<\/p>\n
According to Badosa, Rafa Nadal\u2019s return to the Caja M\u00e1gica will also prove to be a huge draw at the Madrid tournament. \u201cThe Manolo Santana Stadium will definitely be packed. Every time he steps on court I get goose bumps. I can\u2019t wait to see him and I\u2019m really sad that this might be the end of his career,\u201d she lamented.<\/p>\n
The Australian Open finalist this year was also among the early birds at Media Day on Tuesday. The Chinese player admitted it “feels nice to be in Madrid. For the moment I\u2019m feeling OK. I had a slight injury to my leg from last match but I really want to play in Madrid”.<\/p>\n
The sixth seed is very familiar with Spain and she spent a few days practising in Barcelona before arriving in the capital. “I am trying to learn Spanish”, she revealed. Asked how it is going, Zheng replied “now it\u2019s \u2018mucho mejor\u2019!”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Paula Badosa\u2019s face lights up whenever she talks about the Mutua Madrid Open. With her sixth participation in the women\u2019s main draw set to kick off on Wednesday, the Spaniard is once again the flagbearer for the home players. A semi-finalist at the Madrid WTA 1000 in 2021, she acknowledged that she feels \u201ca special […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":92922,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"mc4wp_mailchimp_campaign":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[824,837,843],"tags":[1026,873,832],"class_list":["post-92968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-noticias-mutua-en","category-noticias-tenis-en","category-noticias-tenis-femenino-en","tag-2024-en","tag-paula-badosa-en-2","tag-wta-en-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92968"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92968\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92980,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92968\/revisions\/92980"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}