Lily Miyazaki shrugs off singles defeat with doubles victory

By James Reid at Wimbledon

Lily Miyazaki brushed off the disappointment of singles defeat to extend her Wimbledon stay with victory in doubles.

Miyazaki was beaten 6-0 6-0 by world No.14 Daria Kasatkina, but dusted herself down to team up with Emily Appleton to beat Xiyu Wang and Lin Zhu 3-6 6-2 7-6 (9) later in the afternoon.

The 28-year-old admitted defeat to Kasatkina was a difficult experience on her show court debut but was pleased with the way she was able to respond.

She said: “Definitely mixed emotions. I went through the highs and lows of sport today but I am happy Emily and I managed to get the win in doubles, coming through such a close match.

“It was tough, after the singles I was quite upset because it was quite a heavy defeat. I knew I had a doubles match scheduled so I managed to switch my focus onto that pretty quickly.

“I had my team around me at lunch and they took my mind off the singles and I focussed on the doubles.

“Having a doubles match was good for me, it definitely took my mind off the singles for a bit. This morning I don’t think I played great so it was nice to go out on the court and try a few things out.”

Miyazaki earned her first main draw Wimbledon win on Monday when she beat Tamara Korpatsch 6-2 6-1 in under an hour.

It was just her second Grand Slam main draw win following victory in the first round of last year’s US Open and guaranteed her £93,000 in prize money.

And the 28-year-old insisted she is taking the positives from coming up against one of the world’s very best in Kasatkina.

“It's amazing to play against a player like Daria Kasatkina. I don't know if she's top 10 or around that level. So it's great to see what those top players do,” she added.

“I am not used to playing at that level. Today when I got on court I was a little bit nervous, I never really settled in. when you have those nerves your feet don’t really get going, your arms are tight.

“I don’t think I managed to play well but she is a great player and makes it really tricky.

“There are so many things I can learn from it. Obviously, things that I need to work on, so it's great that that match highlighted those things.”

Whatever the rest of the fortnight holds for Miyazaki, she hopes to continue to have vociferous home support behind her following her first outing on a show court against Kasatkina.

She said: “To play on Court 18 was great, to have that support, but it was disappointing I couldn’t perform the way I would have liked.

“It was my first experience playing that and I think I was a little bit nervous. Even then, when I was losing, it was nice to have the crowd cheering you on and saying my name, things like that.

“It's an experience that I really enjoyed.”

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