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Cape Town - Angelique Kerber says everyone wants to beat her now that she is the No 1 women's tennis player in the world.
The 28-year-old won her second grand slam title at the US Open earlier this month which saw her climb above Serena Williams in the standings.
The German plays her first match as No 1 this week when she travels to Wuhan in China, and she no doubt feels as if everyone will want to defeat her.
“Every player would like to beat me now,” Kerber said. “So I will just try to going out and not thinking about this. I’m going out to think like they are: to beat everybody on court as well, to win the matches.
"I think when I’m going with this focus in the match, like I did also the last few months and tournaments before, that worked. So I will try to continue that.”
She also won the Australian Open title in 2016 and Kerber admits her life has changed since she hit the summit of tennis.
“It’s different,” she added. “It’s really different. Before, like one year ago, if somebody asked me, Would you prefer to be No 1 or win Grand Slams? My answer was always, 'First I would like to win a Grand Slam and then the next step is to be No 1.'
"Like I said then, to win a Grand Slam for me, it was always the biggest dream, but then to reaching the No 1 was the second one. To do it in one tournament, that was really special.
“I think I will never forget the two weeks in New York with all the emotions, all the positive feedback... That was really, really the best feeling that I had in my career.”
