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BNP PARIBAS MASTERS

November 7, 2015

Cedric Pioline

Paris, France

THE MODERATOR: Questions in French.

Q. So did you experience this tournament as the new member of the Davis Cup staff?
CEDRIC PIOLINE: I saw many good things. My new role doesn't change things much. I have always been here. I like to watch. I have seen, of course, even more matches than usual this time, and I saw many good things from our various French players.
Of course I was watching with a different state of mind, of course, because I had the Davis Cup in mind. There are a certain number of things I watched very carefully.

Q. So you watched the matches. Did you talk with the players? Are you going to report to Yannick? How does it go?
CEDRIC PIOLINE: Well, I hope we're going to write the story well. Loïc Courteau, Yannick and myself, we're all here. But that had been announced ahead of time. It's no surprise.
We don't need to report all the time. We all know the game. So unless there is something really important...
But indeed we had many exchanges among us, and we met with the players. Of course when they are playing a tournament, it's a bit more difficult. We wanted to let them focus on their tournament. But since everybody was here, we thought we could try to understand the structures for each players, how they work with their own teams and try to organize something that is close to what they are used to, even if we will not maybe copy everything.

Q. This might be a stupid question, but do you feel some pressure to obtain a good result that you didn't feel for a long time now?
CEDRIC PIOLINE: Not right now. So now I'm going to talk about myself. But if I accepted this adventure, it is because I really wanted to create good performance. I wanted to win. You're talking about my life. If I listen to you talking about pressure, this has been my life, and we love that, all of us.
It's true that Davis Cup is a different competition, because it comes periodically during the year and with nothing in between. So it's a bit special. And we will need to adapt to that new rhythm. But anyway, it's very exciting.

Q. We are at the end of the season. How can you assess globally the results of the French players? How will you organize the work for the coming year?
CEDRIC PIOLINE: There are many positive things for the various French players. The top French players are those who started their season the latest. So congratulations for reaching the top 10 starting three months after all the others. This is very positive.
Gilles has been very consistent. Maybe we would have expected a bit from Gaël Monfils in terms of results. And we had good surprises, like the good results of Benoit who is now among the top 10 for the first time, and he started the year at 140. Mannarino has confirmed. Chardy is very consistent. Pouille doing better. I mean, globally it is very positive. Now, you shouldn't be confused.
All these improvements are done by the players with their own structures, and we are going to focus on a week training session before each ties. So we want to be connected with the structures of the players because the real work is done by the coach. We can't have the same influence on the player than a coach might have on a daily basis.

Q. So you will be between the captain and the players all the time? Is it a different type of job? Is it a difficult balance to find?
CEDRIC PIOLINE: Everybody knows how I'm a professional of communication. I don't see where the problem is.

Q. Well, that particular job you have now didn't exist before, being in between the captain and the players. You might have to deal with some delicate issues. Can that be sometimes difficult?
CEDRIC PIOLINE: Well, sometimes things go well, and sometimes there is a bit of tension. You have to learn and just try to deal with the problems. I'm not going to say everything will be always perfect and harmony will be everywhere, but this is the goal, of course. But there will be moments when we might have difficulties or issues.
But I believe that Yannick, as a captain, has given his guidelines very clearly and the framework he wants to create. So this is very clear. And after that, we just need to get along with each other and communicate well. That will do it.

Q. How can you share the work on a tournament like this with Loïc?
CEDRIC PIOLINE: I don't even want to say we are sharing anything. We just watch together, and we talk about it. We are discovering each other, in fact. We have known each other for a long time, but we never worked together, actually. So we have to learn to know each other, and the quicker we know that, the better.
Here there were many people we needed to watch or with whom we could have some discussions, so there was not a proper sharing of tasks, like, You talk to that particular person, I will talk to that one. Things went just very well.

Q. In December your role will continue. Are you going to see the players when they are practicing? What are you going to do?
CEDRIC PIOLINE: No, it's not planed that way for the time being. If there is a request from one player, of course, if it's in Miami, it's complicated. If it's closer, it's easier. But it is a possibility if some players want to have an exchange with us or ask for our opinion, it is possible.

Q. What would this generation need to win the Davis Cup? Is it something mental? Physical they would need this extra...
CEDRIC PIOLINE: You stopped the question before the end, but what are they lacking? Well, a lot and very little at the same time. We have great champions. We have players with a lot of qualities, and they were all able at a given time to shine and to do some very good performances. So, in fact, what is missing is some details rather.
I'm thinking about Richard's match against Murray yesterday. He was very close, but he didn't win. So this is because of a certain amount of little details here and there that maybe are not that big. But at the end of a match or at the end of the season, it makes a difference. And I am going to try to make them aware of those little details to try to overcome those little problems and change the result.
Sometimes sort of a very brief mental reaction or just a little effort you should make at the very precise moment, these are not big things. Against Djokovic yesterday, I didn't think Novak was playing that well. He was a bit tired. But he's able to manage the important points beautifully. The score was very tight, 7‑6, 7‑6, but he is the winner, and that is where we have to learn.

Q. You won the Davis Cup as a player. What is your perception of the sacrifices to be made by individual players? What do they have to sacrifice in their personal career to be able to win as a team?
CEDRIC PIOLINE: It is rather in terms of organization instead of in terms of sacrifices. We are excluding no one from the team, but there are maybe four players that are above the others. They are 30 years old, and they have experience in all this.
So the thing we need now is use our experience for the organization. This has been said by Yannick very clearly. And they know. They know that they will need to be solid here, they will need to have a team spirit, all these ingredients that are needed so that as a team, they will be able to go even further and higher.
So this is the issue. All the rest is a detail, if I may say. Of course you can't play the week before because you need to come to the Davis Cup tie fresh, but if you have that team spirit, this is just a detail.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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