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World No. 75 Jordan Thompson revealed he doesn't like to put too much pressure or expectation on himself at the start of the season in Australia. Thompson, a former world No. 43, kicked off his 2022 season at this week's Melbourne Summer Set, where he beat Christopher O'Connell in the first round before losing to Emil Ruusuvuori.
“It’s always tough at the start of the year, you don’t know how you are going to come out and you don’t know how you are going to be striking the ball,” Thompson said, per Tennis Australia.
“So I never put too much pressure or expectation on myself during the first few weeks of the year. “Sometimes I’ve made a few quarters and won matches in every tournament and other times I haven’t won a match at all”.
Thompson details his battle with COVID-19
Thompson admitted beating Kei Nishikori at Wimbledon was a confidence booster but also added contracting COVID-19 late in the year wasnt the most pleasing end to the year. Thompson admitted he lost a couple of kilos and wasn't doing well for some time but it all changed after he returned to Australia.
“That was definitely confidence-boosting, beating Nishikori in the second round at Wimbledon, and that was when I started to play a lot better on the grass and it carried on to the US,” he said. “The season was a bit up and down.
I had a really good stretch in the USA where I made a couple of quarters and a semi – I was a point away from the third round at the US Open and then I sort of fell away at the back end of the year. “As the results fell away, I got COVID so it wasn’t the most pleasing end to the year.
We’ll start afresh here in Australia. “I lost a couple of kilos and wasn’t doing too much for a couple of weeks, but as soon as I got back to Australia I got right back into it and was training hard as usual”.