United States of Tennis: Black Girls Tennis Club liberates Black women and girls both on and off the court

Not even a double bagel could get Karolina Pliskova down after an abrupt finish at the Internazionali BNL d'Italia as the former No. 1 shared a (slightly sarcastic) carousel on Instagram.

"Just another Sunday," she wrote along with a flurry of emojis to caption some casual images around the Italian capital in addition to her runner-up trophy.

Reaching a third straight final in Rome, the 2019 champion still has reason to celebrate thanks to some hard-fought wins over rival Jelena Ostapenko—against whom she saved three match points in the quarterfinals—and Petra Martic, but was initially finding it hard to be positive after the 6-0, 6-0 defeat to reigning Roland Garros champ Iga Swiatek.

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A post shared by Karolina Pliskova (@karolinapliskova)

"I guess I cannot just like forget, because of those 46 minutes, everything what I did this week," she said in her post-match press conference. "So I'm just gonna try to forget on that. You know, I had some good moments here, especially good matches beating good players here, so I have to move on."

Typically at her best on hard-courts, Pliskova has played some solid tennis on clay over the years, reaching the semifinals of Roland Garros in 2017 and riding a nine-match winning streak on the surface that took her to the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix title and Mutua Madrid Open semis in 2018.

The ever-analytical former No. 1 has largely struggled in the months since the COVID-19 lockdown concluded, but had been feeling cautiously optimistic after her semifinal win.

"It doesn't matter what I say now, I can still lose in Paris in first round," she insisted. "No matter how good I feel now, it doesn't really give you anything in the next couple weeks. You still have to work for it.

"But I hope I will feel better and maybe like more relaxed a bit to go to the other tournaments in the next couple weeks, months, with this kind of result, with having the matches I had this week, overcoming some situations which I had this week and beating some players, Martic, for example, I never beat on clay. For sure this gives me some strength."