Confused Bacsinszky plots her way into third round

By Martyn Herman

LONDON (Reuters) – Swiss 11th seed Timea Bacsinszky roared her way into the Wimbledon third round on Saturday after waking up admitting she had no idea where she was.

Bacsinszky has suffered more than most from the incessant rain delays that have plagued the tournament and had an early-morning appointment to finish off her delayed second-round match against Monica Niculescu.

She had shared the opening two sets with her Romanian opponent on Friday and was 1-0 down in the decider when the rains returned to wash out play.

But after being told by her coach to play like a lion, she reeled off six games in a row on Saturday to set up a third-round clash with Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russia.

“It was new for me.This morning when I woke up at 6:30, I was like, first of all, where am I? I didn’t realize I was in my room.Sometimes it happens when you travel a lot,” she told reporters.

“I don’t realize where I am, so it happened this morning, too.I was like panicked.Oh, where is everything?Ah, boyfriend is there.This is good. Safe.

“Then I was like, Oof, I have a match to play!”

Bacsinszky said she had never experienced a match being held over since her junior days.

“In the past three years since I came back I realized that I had never had to come back on another day to finish a match off,” the 27-year-old, who suffered foot and abdominal injuries between 2011-13, said.

“It’s tough because you have this tension. Not this match, but of my first-round already from Tuesday, then Wednesday, then I finally played on Thursday.

“Then right away you have to play on Friday. Then Friday it doesn’t end.The tension is still there.”

She said she had talked to her coach the night before about the best way to handle it.

“He was telling me, be like a lion in the cage and just leave the cage closed until you go on court.You decide when you open it.But just before, stay still, stay calm,” she explained.

“But then when you’re out there, you decide when.It can be later on if you feel it’s later on.But just, yeah, open the gates, let the lion in the arena.”

She will hope to release the beast again when she features in “People’s Sunday” after organizers opted to use the usual rest-day to catch up the schedule.

(Editing by Ed Osmond)