Daria Gavrilova believes she will enter next week's Australian Open in better form than last year's march to the fourth round.
Gavrilova moves onto Melbourne Park after falling just short of the Sydney International final, losing 3-6 6-4 6-2 on Friday to compatriot Ashleigh Barty.
Both women struggled with their serve on Ken Rosewall Arena, with a total 11 service breaks.
"It was really swirly. It was changing a lot. Sometimes I was thinking, 'Okay, why am I missing serves?'. Like I thought my ball toss was good, and I was driving with legs," she said.
"But just the contact wasn't - it just felt like the ball was just getting away."
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While Gavrilova claimed the first set, Barty fought back to level the match before riding a wave of momentum to become the first Australian to reach the Sydney final since 2005.
Gavrilova's frustrations spilled over in the ninth game of the second set when, after coming back from 3-0 down to level at 4-4, she double-faulted to go down a break again.
She then received a code violation for cracking her racquet, and admitted after the match that her serving struggles needed to be addressed before next week.
"Obviously, I got frustrated on that four-all game. Just probably hitting a double fault in the net is probably the biggest ... yeah, I got frustrated," she said.
"Double faults are not helping me at all but, overall, I think I'm on the right path and playing good tennis."
The 23-year-old will meet a qualifier first up in Melbourne in a quarter that includes 12th seed Julia Goerges and No.5 Venus Williams.
Gavrilova, who has reached the round of 16 in consecutive Australian Opens, insists she's playing better than this time last year.
"Last year, I actually didn't play that well. I was just competing. I was fighting hard. In the end, I was getting the wins," she said.
"You just never know. You just compete with what you have on a day. It's never easy. Like you could be playing someone outside top 100 or you could be playing someone inside top 10.
"They could have a good day; they could have a bad day."
