00:00Sous-titrage Société Radio-Canada
00:30...
01:00It was a crucial week for me and my prep for here.
01:05I had a couple of days of here.
01:07The condition's extremely, extremely different.
01:10Obviously, a lot warmer here, so the ball's quite lively.
01:14And, yeah, I've done everything I can to prepare
01:18and now I'll get ready for a battle tomorrow.
01:20How happy are you with this weather forecast for the next week or so?
01:23Yeah, I mean, it's great.
01:25We're not too used to seeing, especially at the start of the week,
01:30I feel like the sun come out and it's going to be very warm
01:34for the whole first week.
01:36So it definitely changes the conditions and the playing style.
01:40Everything's a lot quicker, livelier.
01:41It's a little bit to adapt from the cold, rainy weather in Hamburg,
01:48but I'm very excited to see the sun and the hot weather.
01:52You're coming off a crazy match.
01:54Do you ever think about how unique the tennis scoring system is?
01:58And if you had free reign, is there anything you would ever change about it?
02:01About the scoring system?
02:03Yeah.
02:06No, I don't think so.
02:08I think the scoring system's pretty set.
02:11It's traditional.
02:13There's, you know, the best of five at slams
02:16and best of three everywhere else.
02:18I mean, it's, yeah, I wouldn't change anything about the scoring system.
02:22I mean, the fact that you could win more points, but still it was a match?
02:26Honestly, I didn't even know that was the case.
02:28So that's the first time I've heard that.
02:30But, look, I thought I played a good match.
02:32I thought I had my chances.
02:35Obviously, I was up, and I think he genuinely started playing
02:42at a very high level and kind of started hitting me off the court.
02:46But, again, as I said, for me, Hamburg, with the kind of month prior,
02:51I had been seriously struggling to get any matches, any confidence,
02:55and the fact that I was able to beat three top 20 players
02:58and have a battle against Tommy Paul was exactly the prep that I needed
03:05going into Roland Garros.
03:06And I'm in a much better place than I was beforehand, but that's for sure.
03:12Alex, you're known to be a really positive person.
03:18So that month when things were not going the way you would have hoped,
03:23how frustrating was that getting?
03:25And were you wondering, when is this drought going to break?
03:28And the second part is, is your young mate going to be here again this year?
03:33Yeah, look, the last month, it's been very tough.
03:39I mean, it's no secret.
03:40I think you could see how I was feeling on court from someone
03:47who's quite good at managing his own emotions.
03:50I felt like the last month there was, you could definitely feel the situation I was in.
03:58And so that was something that, of course, I wanted to get out of.
04:02I wanted to get out of the slump and kind of see the light.
04:07There was a lot of work that was put in.
04:10And it was kind of, the mentality was to, yeah, put your head down, put the work in.
04:15And that's the only way you're going to get out of it.
04:19And eventually it did come out.
04:21Something clicked in my mind.
04:24I don't think it's the fact that I forgot how to play tennis for a month.
04:30I think it was just something kind of switched off mentally.
04:33And I'm glad that I was able to kind of find that back.
04:36And in terms of Paul and Noah, well, I just saw Noah today.
04:44He's going to be around.
04:46I'm going to have to wait and see about Paul.
04:48But he's always supporting all year round.
04:52So that's pretty cool.
04:54How much do you actually know about your next opponent?
04:57Well, sorry, your first-round opponent.
04:59I know he's West Hance.
05:00But do you know much about him?
05:03Went to college.
05:05I haven't seen much of him play.
05:09I've watched his matches here, watched his match against Goffin.
05:14But I haven't hit with him.
05:16I haven't played him, obviously.
05:19And, you know, I think he's, you know, a big, tall guy, good serve, good forehand.
05:24And, obviously, in these lively conditions, it's going to be a challenge.
05:29And for me, yeah, I think the biggest thing is for me to be ready for a physical battle, right?
05:38It's going to be hot.
05:38It's going to be warm.
05:39It's going to be physical.
05:41I played a lot of tennis and now it's more about playing on instinct and, yeah, get ready for him
05:51to throw the kitchen sink at me.
05:52And hopefully it should be a nice battle.
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