CoCo Vandeweghe treasures her run to the 2017 US Open semifinals.
She's ready to trash her 2018 season after exiting the Open today.
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Playing just her third match of the North American summer hard-court season, the 24th-seeded Vandeweghe crashed out of the US Open opening round for the second time in the last three years.
Former Wimbledon semifinalist Kirsten Flipkens bounced Vandeweghe, 6-3, 7-6 (3), to advance to the second round.
Vandeweghe has been plagued by a right ankle injury that has contributed to her five-match losing streak.
After a rousing 2017 that saw Vandeweghe power into Grand Slam semifinals at both the Australian Open and US Open and lead the United States to the Fed Cup championship, next season can't come fast enough.
"I think rustiness has played a part in important moments," said Vandeweghe, who suffered her fifth US Open first-round loss. "Instead of putting the nail in the coffin, [I] missed second-serve returns, double faults, that's definitely cheap, free points.
"I think rust has a big part of it. I've been dying to get match play, but physically because of injury, I haven't been able to. I'm already looking for 2019. I can throw 2018 into the garbage can real fast."
Vandeweghe, who took timeouts for treatment to both ankles today, said suffering the flu in Australia in January set her back. She injured her right ankle en route to the 's-Hertogenbosch semifinals in June and did not start hitting again until a couple of days before Cincinnati
"We're high-functioning machines and it takes a while to recover and get back to peak performance," Vandeweghe said. "There's not much when I'm playing two months of the whole year.
"This tournament was a huge question mark for me if I was even gonna compete. My first hit after Wimbledon was in Cincinnati about two days before I played so it's been a roller coaster. I've only been pain free for two weeks."
That doesn't mean the native New Yorker will pull the plug on this season. Vandeweghe said it's too costly to skip the Asian swing.
"Unfortunately, we have to play Asia and it would probably cost me more money not to play those tournaments than actually play them," Vandeweghe said. "So I will be playing China."