THE CHAMPIONSHIPS

July 1, 2025

Elisabetta Cocciarreto

Press Conference

E. COCCIARETTO/J. Pegula

6-2, 6-3

THE MODERATOR: We'll start with questions in English. Just your thoughts on your great win today?

ELISABETTA COCCIARETTO: For sure it was a really great match. I played unbelievable, I think one of the best matches that I ever played. I was so pumped to play here, because I split Wimbledon last year. I was really grateful to play and to play such a great champion like her.

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. Thinking back to last year, when did you realize you couldn't play? How disappointed did you feel?

ELISABETTA COCCIARETTO: I was playing Birmingham, the 250. The day of quarter finals when I won against Schnaider, I was really sick in the night, like sweating a lot and feeling really bad. I had a lot of fever.

Well, I played the semifinal. Maybe I had to retire, but I mean, I was in the semifinal. I didn't think that I had something wrong.

So I went to the airport to go to Bad Homburg, and I was sweating a lot. I was so bad, like a lot of fever, like 40 degrees of fever. I was really sick.

I went to Bad Homburg, and I was supposed to play against Sakkari first round, but I withdraw because I couldn't walk. I couldn't, yes, wake up from the bed.

I stayed five or six days with 39, 40 degrees of fever. And I went here, I took antibiotics and everything. But the thing is that I was sleeping, like, 15 hours a day. Then I did two weeks of antibiotics. No, maybe more. 16 days of two antibiotics, because I had in Italy we call mycoplasma virus pneumoniae.

Yeah, I went to the hospital, and I was sick until the Olympic Games. I played three days, and I went to the Olympics, because you never know that you will play in the future.

Then I started again practicing, but I was so, like, sad, because I was playing really good on grass, and I was so happy to play on grass, because I think it's one of my best, I think it's my best surface.

So, yes, that's it. I mean, I'm really grateful to play this year.

Q. Was it a challenge to come back physically from that illness?

ELISABETTA COCCIARETTO: Yes. The thing is it happened also the past year in China. I went to the hospital again for a virus. I stayed two months away. I took another bad virus, stomach virus.

I did a lot of, like, I took a lot of medicine to restabilize all the things that I had wrong on my body. But it was tough months for me. So I'm really grateful that now I can play, that now I'm in this big tournament, big stage. So yeah, I'm just enjoying it.

Q. Jessica had not lost a first-round major match in five years, and she said you were absolutely incredible, you were playing insane. What does that make you feel when you hear her say that and you think about doing something against her that hardly anybody does?

ELISABETTA COCCIARETTO: Yeah, also her coach went to me after the match to congratulate. I think it's a really good thing from a player of such a great, I mean, great level. She's No. 3 in the world. Of course, she was upset to lost, of course, in the first round.

But I think she's No. 3 also because of that, because sometimes I think a great player also recognize sometimes that maybe they didn't do the best, but the other opponent did a good match. I'm really happy that she said that, because of course, she's a really good player. She's a great champion.

For me listen this word from her, it's really, really good.

Q. Then, how would you compare the way you played today versus any match you've ever played?

ELISABETTA COCCIARETTO: I played a lot of, not a lot, but a couple of matches against one of the best players in the world, like Iga, Aryna, Coco Gauff. I think I was thinking about this match since two days, like every single moment.

Like, I said to myself, Okay, you have to do the positive things that you did wrong in the other matches. You need to don't think about anything, just to enjoy the match.

Sometimes I was thinking too much that I went to the court not, like, thinking that I could win, but sometimes like maybe I can lose.

But today I said to myself, No, you don't have nothing to lose, go for it, play strong, and just don't think.

It went really good (smiling).

Q. You said the grass is your favorite surface. How come, because in Italy I guess you didn't grow up on grass? When did you realize grass was your favorite?

ELISABETTA COCCIARETTO: When I was little, I was, like my game was completely different. I stayed away from the court, running a lot. Then with Fausto, my coach, he changed me completely. I stay really near the court. I go really aggressive. I think I adapt really well.

Also, in 's-Hertogenbosch, I think I'm pretty good working around the court. Like, for me it's comfortable. I don't know why, because I really played maybe four or five tournaments in my life on grass.

When we juniors we practiced a lot in the garden, like doing exercise. In the tennis federation where I was practicing, they build, like, a garden with tennis court with lines. We were practicing a lot before Roehampton or Wimbledon juniors.

From there I said to Fausto, I want to play in the future Wimbledon, because I think I can play really well, because I could, like, play really good also with boys. I said to myself, I can.

So always when I step on grass courts, I'm really happy just to play there (smiling).

Q. One follow-up. Did Jessica herself say anything to you at the end of the match?

ELISABETTA COCCIARETTO: Jessica? She said, Congrats, really good match, really well-played.

It was a really great honor for me, because not always a great champion like her say to me these things (laughing).