Tere-Apisah loses in Singapore quarterfinals

ABIGAIL Tere-Apisah made it as far as the quarterfinals of the Singapore ITF Women’s 25K last week.
Two days after winning her first professional title on the International Tennis Federation’s World Tour at Kallang Tennis Centre, Singapore, on May 19, the 26-year-old then continued straight to the next tournament at the same venue.
Tere-Apisah won her first two games on Tuesday and Wednesday against Singapore’s Tammy Tan 6-0, 6-1 and Russia’s Angelina Gabueva 7-6 (4), 6-4 before losing to New Zealander Paige Hourigan 6-4, 6-3 on Thursday.
“I woke up the morning of the quarterfinal very mentally flat, but I went through my usual routine, preparing,” Tere-Apisah said about playing back-to-back tournaments and the quarterfinal against Hourigan.
“It’s funny because I am friends with Paige (Hourigan) and so after the match, we had a chat about the match and I didn’t think it was a matter of whether she had more experience or whether I had more experience; it was basically who could hang out there longer and during that match it was her. We have very different styles of game.
“I felt both mentally and physically fatigued so I rushed a lot of the points which caused many of my errors. I looked at my statistics and I lost the match because of a high percentage of errors from me. It just wasn’t my day.
“I like to think that if I had been fresh, it could have been a different story but I won’t be dwelling on that loss because I’m still proud of these last two weeks and there’s so much I can take away from this trip.”
Tere-Apisah said she was now looking to her next challenge which would be the Prudential Women’s tournament in Hong Kong (May 27-June 2).
“I’ll travel to Hong Kong and then it’s back to preparing for the next one with physio, hydrating, resting, eating well and speaking to my coaches,” Tere-Apisah, who was a finalist for the Female Athlete of the Year category, in Saturday’s SP Awards, said.