Casper Ruud n'est pas passé loin de prendre la porte dès son entrée en lice à l'Open d'Australie. Le 6e joueur mondial, opposé au dangereux Jaume Munar, a été poussé dans un cinquième set avant de s'en sortir après près de 3h30 de combat (6-3, 1-6, 7-5, 2-6, 6-1). Sa réaction en conférence de presse après le match.
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00:00I'm just really happy to be through and happy that I stepped up in the fifth.
00:09Anytime you play a five-setter, it will be ups and downs because you will lose two sets,
00:17and that's not a good feeling, but if you can win three of them, that's it.
00:21That's the main objective, and the first match can always be tricky.
00:25I don't have an excuse because I've been here for ten days,
00:29but sometimes if you're not used to the conditions and so on...
00:33Of course you don't want to lose early, so you can be a little extra tight,
00:37but I'm happy I got through and I just made more balls towards the end,
00:43played a couple of loose sets, a bit too loose, second and fourth,
00:47and did too many mistakes, but it's OK, we have time in five setters,
00:51and I stepped up when I needed the most.
00:56Any questions?
00:59Congrats, Kasper. I just wondered, in a long match today,
01:03what do you eat before you play and how do you fuel during a match?
01:07I mostly eat quite a big chunk of rice with some sort of protein,
01:12either chicken or salmon, and maybe olive oil and salt,
01:17just kind of very boring stuff, but it works.
01:20During a match, during five setters, it's a little different than a three-setter,
01:24because I start eating small bites a bit earlier.
01:27I don't really like eating on court, because your pulse is always pretty high
01:34and you have the adrenaline, it's not very easy to feel hungry,
01:37but I realise that if I don't fuel up anything other than liquid,
01:41I'm going to be cramping up and tired towards the end of a fifth set,
01:45so I need to eat a little bit.
01:47Usually a chocolate bar or banana does it for me,
01:50but pre-meal is always rice, pasta is too heavy for me,
01:55so I have chosen rice as the thing that works for me.
02:04Kasper, you played against Jaume on hard court before and you lost.
02:10Is that on mind, when you enter to the centre court,
02:14that maybe it's a player who also beats you in this surface,
02:18especially when you go into the fifth set?
02:20Yeah, definitely. Fifth set, I try not to think about that,
02:24but in a way I have a positive record against him,
02:30but when that one loss was the last match we played,
02:32you think a little bit extra about it.
02:34Honestly, it's normal to be quite nervous at the beginning of a tournament,
02:37I've never played my opening match on a Sunday,
02:40and if I would have lost today, I felt like I would be on the way home
02:45before the tournament even started.
02:47I really didn't want to lose, and I guess maybe that also helped me
02:51pull through the fifth set, just kind of refusing to lose,
02:57if that's something you can say.
03:01It wasn't necessarily pretty always, but it worked and I got there in the end.
03:05I played a good fifth set and that's what I'm going to take with me
03:08for the next match, and also happy that I was able to overcome
03:12and get my revenge from last time.
03:15Kasper, congratulations.
03:18It's obviously difficult to be ready as soon as January 10th
03:21for a Grand Slam tournament.
03:23What's your way to prepare for the season?
03:25What did you do after the ATP finals?
03:27And maybe you can compare with the previous seasons,
03:29if you changed something.
03:30Yeah, I was on holiday for ten days just to kind of relax,
03:38and then after I started practising and doing pretty good work in the gym.
03:42I also, during the off-season, I did a few exhibitions.
03:45I played one exhibition match in Norway with Holger,
03:48and we also played one match there in Denmark, or in his home city.
03:54So that was pretty cool.
03:56Two Scandinavians doing well at the same time.
03:59We tried to make two good matches.
04:01And then I played another exhibition in Abu Dhabi,
04:04kind of on the way down here, and one more in Macau.
04:09So I've been a few places on the way, but for me honestly,
04:13it's quite difficult because Norway is the complete opposite weather
04:17of what you find here.
04:19And I don't really, with the travel that we do,
04:22I don't really want to go somewhere for the pre-season.
04:25So I think I realised that I will do a lot of fitness in Norway,
04:28and play of course, but I was in Melbourne from January 1st,
04:33and I knew there was a big chance of me being here January 1st,
04:36so I felt like that's ten days where I will get really good practice
04:39and kind of get used to the weather.
04:41The pre-season that started with the United Cup,
04:43I looked at those ten days as a kind of continuation of the pre-season,
04:47and I think the season really started for me today.
04:52Was there anything interesting that you did in your fitness sessions
04:55in the off-season that was fresh or you knew you'd never done before?
04:59Yeah, a few intervals, like 200- and 400-metre runs that are quite tough.
05:05I don't like those, but it's OK, you have to do it.
05:09You have to build up your stamina, and we did so many different things.
05:14The thing is, as a tennis player you need a lot,
05:17you need agility, speed, but also endurance,
05:20and try to be flexible at the same time.
05:23You cannot only build muscle, you have to also try to become smooth out there,
05:28so every day we worked on something new.
05:33It was a pretty hectic season,
05:36but Christmas of course is a big thing in Norway,
05:39so a lot of family time and all these Christmas dinners that you have to go on,
05:45so I think I've shaved off a few kilos from Christmas Eve.
05:54Obviously in tennis, being an individual sport,
05:56there will be some players you have a really good record against
05:59and some you have a really bad record against.
06:02If you're playing someone where you have a bad record,
06:05do you think you have to change up what you've done before,
06:08or do you think luck is going to change?
06:11How do you deal with that when you're playing someone like that?
06:15Yeah, well, I have a few examples.
06:18Obviously with Novak, not many players have a good record against him,
06:22so I'm not the only one, but I got to beat him for the first time last year.
06:26It's nice in a way to be an underdog and have a bad record,
06:30because you can play freely and lose,
06:32and if you're in the lead like he is with most players,
06:38it's kind of like, will this be the day I finally lose to this guy, or I hope not.
06:42It's almost sometimes nice to be losing head-to-head,
06:46because you can play free and you know what's not working,
06:50you know you've lost two, three, four, five times before,
06:53and when you get that first win over someone you haven't beaten,
06:56it's a really good feeling.
06:58It feels like you've overcome a really tough challenge,
07:01more than any other matches really, so that's a good feeling.
07:06I also realise that at the end of the day,
07:09every day is a new day, every match is a new match.
07:13Anything can happen out there, because all the guys are so good and can play well,
07:17even though you're 3-0, 0-5 in head-to-head, it doesn't really matter,
07:21because it's a new day and new possibilities for everyone.
07:24You just have to focus every day
07:26and hopefully you play better than your opponent that given day.
07:31END OF TRANSCRIPT