Paula Badosa is "excited" to be competing in Australia, says facing Victoria Azarenka will be "really tough" 

Paula Badosa has opened up about her excitement to play Down Under as she prepares for her first singles contest of the year against Victoria Azarenka. Her 2022 campaign is set to kick off in Australia with the Adelaide International, a WTA 500 event starting today.

Speaking about the upcoming season in an interview with The Sydney Morning Herald, the 24-year-old revealed she was "excited" for the Australian summer of tennis.

"The off-season has been short but it was intense. I love Australia and I'm quite excited to start the year," she said.

The World No. 8 admitted that she wasn't expecting the year to start off with such a challenging match, but acknowledged that the best players have to be defeated in order to win titles.

"I'll have a really tough first match against Azarenka, I wasn't expecting a match like that to start, but to win a tournament you have to beat the best players," she said.

The last time Badosa faced Azarenka was in the finals of the 2021 Indian Wells in October. Badosa defeated Azarenka 7-6(5), 2-6, 7-6(2) in a thrilling affair to claim her maiden Masters 1000 title.

Paula Badosa talks about COVID-19 test "drama", reveals she was apprehensive about it being a repeat of 2021

2021 WTA Finals - Day 7

Since her COVID-19 test report took some time to get generated this year, Badosa mentioned how she was apprehensive about the result, hoping it wouldn't be a repeat of last year.

In 2021, Badosa was forced into a "hard quarantine" after testing positive for COVID-19 upon arriving in Melbourne, leaving her in bad shape for the Major. As a result, she suffered a first-round exit but managed to pull it together as the season progressed. She ended the year with two titles, a berth in the season-ending WTA Finals and ranked eighth in the world.

“It was still on my mind if I have to be honest, when the test result took a little bit more than 12 hours,” Badosa was reported as saying in the same interview. “I thought that maybe I’m going to have the same experience. I had a little bit of drama there.”

However, Badosa has fortunately overcome the scare, and is looking forward to starting off the upcoming season with a few wins under her belt.

She will start off her 2022 singles campaign on 4 January in Adelaide against Victoria Azarenka, and also compete in the doubles draw today, where she has teamed up with the Belarusian.