L'eau mouille, le feu brûle et Diede de Groot a remporté un nouveau Grand Chelem en tennis-fauteuil. La Néerlandaise était proche de se faire surprendre, en finale ce samedi, face à la Chinoise Zhenzhen Zhu, bien moins expérimentée malgré ses 34 ans. Finalement, de Groot remporte bien son cinquième Roland-Garros, le quatrième de suite, le 14e Grand Chelem consécutif, et le 21e au total. Impressionnant. Et elle n'a 'que' 27 ans.
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00:00Hi Didier, congratulations on such a great performance here at Roland Garros, this is
00:10your fourth consecutive title here. Can you speak a bit about the key of your consistency
00:16here?
00:21I always like the clay as sort of a challenge. It's a little bit more difficult for us in
00:28comparison with hardcourt, but I always love the feeling that over here I can invite all
00:37of my family. It feels almost like a home tournament and it gives good feelings.
00:44Thank you, questions please?
00:47Hi Didier, congratulations. You were playing Zhenzhen who was playing in her first Grand
00:53Slam singles final. Regardless of the draw, anyone playing their first Slam final could
01:02very easily shrink and be overwhelmed by the occasion, but she actually said after the
01:09match that there was this kind of mysterious, magical quality of playing in her first final
01:14on Philippe Chatrier. Were you able to feel that sort of energy coming her way, especially
01:21considering she took the first set and it was a tough battle out there?
01:28Beforehand I already expected that she was going to give her all. As much as she might
01:35be a little bit surprised, I wasn't surprised. She's mentally very tough and I knew she was
01:42not going to be phased about anything. I really knew I had to expect the best of her, which
01:50was maybe why I started off a little bit slow. She did so well, considering it's her
01:57first final, so she can be really proud of herself.
02:03Congratulations. You've reached 22 singles slams now, surpassing Esther. What does that
02:08mean to you to surpass someone who's so inspirational in wheelchair tennis, but also from your country?
02:17Of course I'm really proud to now have this record be mine, but at the same time I know
02:32the conditions when Esther played. She couldn't play singles at Wimbledon. A lot of the Grand
02:38Slams weren't even called Grand Slams yet, so it's really not much of a comparison. Of
02:45course I'm really proud of myself, but I'm mainly just proud of myself for keeping it
02:49up like this. But for me, Esther will always have this legacy where for such a long time,
02:58like 470 matches, I managed to do 150 and I didn't keep it, but she did 470. That's
03:07how good she was. So yes, I have this record and I'm super proud of myself, but for me,
03:14Esther, I mean, we can be together at the top. I feel like it's more together instead
03:20of which one is better.
03:24You mentioned that winning streak being broken last month. How tough mentally was it for
03:29you to bounce back from that? How impressive is it to bounce back and then win here?
03:33Yeah, it's a little bit strange actually. It feels like it had two sides. One, it was
03:43very normal because tennis players lose. And then on the other end, it was very special
03:47because I hadn't lost in a long time. So it was normal, but it was strange. I needed a
03:55week to get myself back together. But after that, it just continued like normal. Nothing
04:02had changed. I knew what I had to do better and I really hyper-focused on those first
04:07two rounds here. I think I did that really well, but at the same time, I know these Chinese
04:13girls are working so hard to beat all of the players here. So it's going to be a tough
04:18summer.
04:19Congratulations, Dita. Today must give you confidence going into the Paralympics, which
04:26are coming up here at Roland Garros. What will it mean for you to play for your country
04:31here in Paris, where you've had so much success in your career?
04:37I'm not actually sure if today will give me a lot of confidence. It wasn't my best
04:42match, but just coming out here, already playing at Châtelier, which is going to be one of
04:49the main courts for us at the Paralympics, is very good. Getting to know what it looks
04:55like. There were a lot of people watching us and they were really engaged into the game.
04:59So that was really good to feel. So I'm really just happy to get it going and to come back
05:05in two and a half months.
05:15My question is a bit strange, but I don't know if you are aware about an advertisement
05:19with you, with Renault, that is going on TV, in French TV, like, I don't know, 20 times
05:26a day.
05:27I don't know about this.
05:28Because I think in France, like everyone who is watching tennis, I've seen your face without
05:33knowing who you are. But so you're not aware of it.
05:37Of course. Of course. It's my own ad. I'm in there. I did the video.
05:41But do you know that it's like going all the time on TV and that people are almost tired,
05:48not of you, but of the music that is going with this advertisement, because all the time
05:52it's on the TV, between the points, between the set and all of this. What's your feeling
05:59about knowing that everyone knows you, but in some other ways, they don't really know
06:03who you are. They just know you because they see you on the advertisement.
06:09I think it was a good choice to change the music. Last year was the most wonderful time,
06:15which is nice at Christmas time. But in the summer, I think you want different music.
06:19So they did that. That's very smart choice.
06:23I'm really proud of this advert. Of course, I know and I've seen it and I've had so many
06:28comments about this. We've seen your face on the television again. But I think at the
06:35same time, it's really important still for us to be visible in those kind of things,
06:41because a lot of people don't know me and a lot of people don't know any of the wheelchair
06:45athletes that are playing here. Even though we are here at all the Grand Slams, we've
06:53got really good sponsors behind us, but people still don't know us yet. So we need help
06:58from those big brands. And I'm really proud of Renault for doing that.
07:02I was just wondering, the Dutch have champions in several sports in the Women's Tour de France,
07:12Max Verstappen. I was wondering, do you speak much to the other Dutch champions? Do you
07:18all encourage each other? What sort of interactions do you have with each other?
07:26We're a very small country, but I think when you're very invested into one sport, which for
07:34me is tennis, I know a lot of tennis players. But I don't really know a lot of other sports.
07:40Of course, I know them by name and maybe I follow them, maybe they follow me back. But
07:46actually talking, not so much. But tennis, definitely. I think it's really nice to see
07:55that we're such a small country, but we're quite big in sports compared to how small
08:01we are. So I think in the last games we were top 10 in the ranking of the medal. So it
08:07shows that we're very interested in sports and I think we take it very seriously. For
08:13us as wheelchair tennis, we are completely integrated into the KNLTB, so our tennis foundation,
08:23so our national federation. So for us as wheelchair tennis players, we are completely
08:28combined with the able-bodied players, which gives us huge support and it's what we need
08:34and we are taking it seriously and that's most important, I think.
08:39Hi, proficiat. My Dutch is not very good, but no worries. I just wanted to know how
08:48you are preparing ahead of the Paralympics. I'm not sure if that's your next target, but
08:55is there any preparation that you're doing, really, that is different or not? And how
09:00are you really looking forward to it? Again, I'm bouncing on the other question, maybe.
09:05Thank you.
09:09So after my loss at the World Team Cup, I needed to reset, but I also needed to think
09:17what is going to be most important playing on clay this year and because we're a little
09:22bit slower, we need to react faster after, for example, our serves. So I practiced a
09:28lot on my serve and it was good in training. I need to work on it a little bit more in
09:32matches, but that was a very huge step for me the past two weeks. I play a lot against
09:40able-bodied players, so they are faster, they hit harder, so I need to adjust to that level
09:46and that helped me a lot. But I think mainly what's going to be fun is that I can be training
09:52at home on the same surface and really feel like it's going to be home. So a lot of people,
09:59a lot of my parents, a lot of my family and a lot of my friends are coming, which for
10:06me is going to be the first time at a Paralympics. Tokyo, nobody was allowed to come and then
10:14Rio was my first time. So this one, everyone's going to be there, so I can celebrate with
10:21them and enjoy it with them and that's going to be most important for me for these games.
10:29Okay, thank you very much. Enjoy your victory. Thank you.
10:31Thank you.
10:33Thank you.