00:00BNP Paribas, partenaire des plus belles histoires de Roland Garros, aux côtés des ramasseurs de balles depuis plus de 50 ans.
00:18I'm feeling good the last couple of days I decided to not play Hamburg and to skip that week because it was vital and important to me to
00:29regain my health. The last few weeks on the tour have been demanding and physically taxing so I had to take a week off.
00:39I've had a good week of preparation back home and I've been doing all the necessary things to try and get ready for the big Grand Slam here in France.
00:50One of my favourites to come and play here. I've always had a good relationship with the crowd but also a very strong memory of getting to play the final here
01:06and having had a great run that year playing flawless tennis and being on top of all my games.
01:13So I'm hoping I can try and regain that confidence. I'm hoping that I won't get stuck at quarters like the last couple of years.
01:25So this is something that I'm going to work towards this edition of the Roland Garros and I'm hoping that it's going to go better for me this time.
01:42Hey Sevanos. From the outside this past year it seemed like quite a year of maturation for you just in terms of the people around you, your team and becoming more of an adult.
01:54Does it feel like that at all for you? Absolutely it feels very much like that and I've acknowledged it, I've accepted it and I know that there's a lot of discomfort that comes with that.
02:04You know, being used to my own ways and being used to certain patterns and situations that were occurring kind of on a repetitive mode.
02:13I feel like I've escaped that a little bit and I'm more in control of what I want and what I think is necessary for me.
02:20Having that said, I feel like I'm my own boss much clearer and I've never worked harder in my life.
02:29So that is a bonus and then that is a plus.
02:32I keep pushing myself to the limits every single day.
02:35Sometimes it's difficult.
02:37It's been a tough two years, I would say, especially after what happened at the NITO finals that one year that I had to retire.
02:45It's been physically very demanding to try to catch up with the intensity of what the tour has to offer.
02:54So I've been just doing my best constantly to have my body constantly prepared and not break down suddenly like it did in Turin that year.
03:04Steph, you mentioned reaching the final here a few years ago.
03:09How did you find the period sort of after having lost it both then and in Australia a couple of years later?
03:16Are we talking about the Grand Slum finals?
03:17Yeah, yeah.
03:18What was the question again?
03:19How did you find it after?
03:21Did it give you belief that you were like, okay, I've reached the final?
03:24Or was it a tough thing to kind of lift yourself and get back to regular tour life?
03:28It feels good being able to play Grand Slum finals.
03:31You feel important.
03:32You feel like you're doing something with your career.
03:34So it definitely adds a lot of confidence to your game.
03:37Being in a position to do it on a hard court and on a clay court shows you that there's variation in my game.
03:47I'm not just a player that can play good on clay or vice versa basically.
03:52So I feel like it feeds me a lot of information of things that didn't go well and why I lost those finals and what can I do better next time.
04:02Twice I was exposed against Novak.
04:05It was very difficult having to be able to keep up with that level of intensity.
04:12It's easy to say that but, you know, one year here I was very close.
04:18I was two sets of love up but it kind of seemed very far away even when I reached that point.
04:23It seemed like I hadn't done anything that important yet because obviously I was being faced against the best player in the world at the time.
04:31I feel like the lineup right now is much more difficult than it was back then.
04:38Players are so much more mature.
04:41Shots have changed, you know.
04:44Players have second forehands in this very moment.
04:47Like they're playing with two forehands almost.
04:49So I have to adapt my game and I have to consider certain things moving forward because it's growing a lot in intensity and physically it has never been in a position like the way it is now.
05:03So I see constant evolution and constant growth of the sport in terms of how the players are evolving and how much better they're getting over the years.
05:12Hi, one of the big moments of the tournament is going to be the ceremony for Nadal.
05:21Can you tell us why he was so strong on play if you have to choose one skill maybe?
05:27I was lucky enough not to play him on Kshatriya because I would have felt that that wouldn't have been a fun experience.
05:36But I've played him a few times on clay.
05:38I can say that, well, he has a gift to be able to play that way and to do the stuff that he did over so many years.
05:45I have massive respect for him, but also he taught me so much about clay court tennis.
05:50He taught me so much about determination and perseverance on the tennis court.
05:55I've always spoken about Federer, how Roger Federer was the person that I looked up to, but I think it's a combination of the two.
06:04I never admitted that it was Rafa because I felt like my tennis resonated more with Roger than Rafa's.
06:11Maybe if I would have been a double-handed backhand player, maybe I would have leaned more towards Rafael Nadal.
06:16But I have massive respect for what he has done with Roland Garros winning 29 times, 14 times.
06:25It will be tough to see him go away. I spoke to him a few weeks ago in Madrid.
06:34It's strange seeing him not compete and living a completely different life than he used to for so many years.
06:43So what did it take then for you to become your own boss, and how have you liked that, I guess, freedom and power in your life, and what are the challenges of it?
06:58Well, responsibility, much more responsibility, and I am ready to face it.
07:02I don't think I would have picked that way if I wasn't ready for the consequences that come with it and the demands that those things entail.
07:13So I was absolutely ready for something like this. I think it also allows me to form more into an adult.
07:19I felt like I was mature at the time, but there are certain things and certain ways that I need to impose within my life to take bigger responsibilities,
07:28and I think that will also teach me how to mature faster and how to be faced against difficult, challenging situations, not just on the tennis court, but outside of it as well.
07:38So I've definitely learned massively on that occasion, and it has helped me form into a much stronger and a much more decisive.
07:50Decisive, sorry. I keep mixing it with Spanish because it's a decisive player.
07:57And person at the same time.
08:04I think it was French that is decisive, no? I got confused.
08:10You were saying that, I just wondered about, you know, you take a tough loss.
08:14Is it difficult as a player because you need to kind of, it's your job to kind of analyze it and see what went wrong, what went right.
08:21But is that quite a painful thing to do to like sit down and watch, say like, let's watch a Grand Slam final defeat.
08:26Like, is that quite, is sometimes you just like, I don't want to watch it.
08:29If I could explain you the time of, the amount of times that I went to watch a match that I've lost and midway, I'm like, I can't do this anymore.
08:36It just hurts me. It hurts seeing me being punched and kicked at, metaphorically speaking.
08:46So I, sometimes I just have to endure it.
08:49I like doing it. I've been doing it more over the last couple of weeks.
08:54I've been spending more time focusing on, you know, receiving feedback from those type of matches because I feel it's much more valuable than I initially thought when I was younger.
09:04I've, I've grown to realize that this is important as part of the growth that I'm looking for in my tennis and data has been a big element into, into the last couple of weeks being on the tour.
09:18I've been analyzing a lot. And what is more interesting is all this equipment stuff and analytics around how equipment actually benefits you or takes away certain things out of your game.
09:29So I've been very analytical on those type of things and it has helped me craft a better understanding of things that are being taken away from a game and things that I maybe should focus on more.
09:44Have you watched back the Sam finals?
09:46With Novak, it's a bit tough because I think it's three hours 40 and I did last week, watch maybe 25, 30 minutes of it.
09:56And made me realize how much of a different player I am today than I was back then.
10:02I would say even better now than in that particular final that I played.
10:07And I would just want to pinpoint the thing you asked me earlier.
10:11Tennis has become more intense in terms of having to keep up with the level.
10:17And that's what I've realized being in that final, that tennis is very much different now than it was before Yannick and Carlos come around the corner.
10:28But also there are a bunch of guys now that are, you know, following their footsteps and showing the same type of potential.
10:34Last question?
10:36Just very quickly on the same theme, Stefanos.
10:40When you watch, say, that match back, a Grand Slam final or a huge match, do you watch the part where you're winning?
10:48Or do you, because maybe it might make you come into the next tournament feeling good about yourself and remembering how well you can play?
10:56Or is it more important to pick up on things that didn't do that so well?
11:00It's important on both ways to analyze the losses and the wins.
11:06Obviously, it's a much greater feeling when you see yourself win matches.
11:09And I spend more time watching those that I win than the ones I lose because it just psychologically, it hurts more being, seeing yourself, you know, not being able to figure it out.
11:20I take away a lot of things from matches that I win to kind of observe more the patterns and the tactics and the strategies that I apply into the competition.
11:29And I try to recreate those in my mind, even when I go to sleep.
11:36Sometimes I play tennis in my mind and I don't think that's toxic or weird to do.
11:41It's just probably a way to show my love for tennis and how much I like the tactic behind the sport that I chose to play.
11:48It helps me, you know, activate my mind a little bit.
11:52Imagine how it would be if I was playing in another Roland Garros final again.
11:55What could I avoid this time and what could I recreate in my mind as a visualization type of thing to try and impose next time maybe if I'm facing a situation like this.
12:07So, yeah, the work starts even outside of the tennis court sometimes, maybe right before bed.
