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ROLAND GARROS

May 29, 2017

Nicolas Mahut

Paris, France

S. BOLELLI/N. Mahut

6-4, 6-2, 6-2

THE MODERATOR: Questions in French.

Q. What explained this difficult match? Is it that you're injured?
NICOLAS MAHUT: Well, I don't want to really go into injuries. I had some physical issues. Since Rome, it's been a little tough, yeah. It's really mainly physically that I haven't really recovered. Since Rome, it's been just rough. It's been a rough week.

Yeah, what else? I just feel very slow when I'm on the court. I really don't have much stamina, and I just can't get to the point where I feel I can do what I need to be doing, which is really difficult.

Q. Is it because of a lack of training or is it the conditions?
NICOLAS MAHUT: I don't know. I think I need to talk to my team. This is right after the match, so I can just, you know, share the facts with you.

To tell you the truth, I'm a little ashamed of what I did today. I'm thinking about my family and my coach. They're working their butts off all year round, and I'm just disappointing them today.

So right now what I'm going to do is just keep a very low profile, see what went wrong, talk to my team, to talk to my doctor as well. But, obviously, playing a match like this at Roland Garros is very unpleasant.

Q. You came across as just not feeling liberated. Is that happened?
NICOLAS MAHUT: I don't know. It's not that I was nervous or tense. But physically I just felt like I couldn't do more than what I did. As I said, I felt like I was very slow. I just couldn't cover the court. I couldn't really serve well. And, at the end of the day, it impacts your performance.

I don't know what your perception was watching the match, but clearly what my perception on the court is what I just told you. It's just not the kind of match I want to remember. So I hope I can stay in good shape for the next ten months so I can come back here. I don't want this to be my last match at the French Open.

Q. Are you concerned about playing doubles?
NICOLAS MAHUT: No, not really. Playing doubles clearly, you know, requires less movement on the court, but clearly I'm going to have to work with my team, with my crew.

And, you know, when I go into the doubles, I'll, obviously, have to feel better and that is for sure. But in a nutshell, the answer is, no, I'm not overly concerned. But, again, right now I need to understand what happened. I had a very light week in terms of training, low intensity. I wanted to have as much energy for my first match here and, obviously, well, it was not enough. So I need to do some thinking.

Q. Any certainties about playing the doubles with Pierre-Hugues. You're obviously the favorites of the tournament.
NICOLAS MAHUT: Are we really? We're seeded No. 2. Before Rome, we were not winning much. Then, you know, came Rome and that makes us maybe the favorites. I don't know.

But I guess that's really not how I like to look at things. We have to win six matches to win. We're going to try to do our best to go as far as possible. The first round is going to be a very difficult one. And when you play in a Grand Slam tournament, you don't win on paper. You win out on the court and you have to be in top shape for two weeks.

So, of course, the objective is to win. Are we the favorites? I'll leave that up to you. At this point, I can tell that you if we play well, we can beat a lot of teams. I think we have pretty much defeated all the other teams, but there is a lot of work for us.

Q. Last year, things didn't go very well playing doubles. Is that something that you have left behind you, or is that now back in your mind simply being back here at the French Open?
NICOLAS MAHUT: We have not really discussed this with Pierre-Hugues, but you're right. Last year, things did not go very well. We had to play, you know, when it was raining. We came out of here being very frustrated.

Obviously, the weather conditions are very different this year, which is a good thing. But, again, the tournament has not even started. It's very difficult to project, you know.

Today, I was really focusing on playing singles, and I guess Pierre-Hugues is going to do the same thing. We'll see how things turn out for him. Hopefully he can move on to the next rounds and then we'll start playing doubles -- I don't even know when it is. I guess Wednesday? Maybe tomorrow. I don't know. Tomorrow? If it's tomorrow, then we'll really have to get our act together.

Yeah, I think we're ambitious, but I don't think we are starting the doubles with last year in mind. I think we have been on a recent positive momentum. I think we should keep it that way.

Q. You said you don't want this to be your last match at the French Open. Is that something that you have considered?
NICOLAS MAHUT: Honestly, no. That is not at all my mindset. At this point, I'm not thinking about stopping. But, of course, at the end of the day, it comes down to results. I just hope I'll be in good shape again. If I'm way down the ranking, last year, I know what might happen and that's not good. So please wish me to play well.

Q. Would you say that your confidence or lack of confidence for a match like today influences your mindset for doubles?
NICOLAS MAHUT: Well, when I came here this morning, I don't think I was struggling with my levels of confidence. I've only been in major tournaments recently with, you know, better seeded players. I played Sock. I played Cuevas. I played a few others. And I was pretty confident coming in this morning, including physically.

So I don't think that this will have an impact on playing doubles. In my mind, it's something very different. I just hope I won't be -- I'll manage to leave today's disappointment behind. You know, this has happened to me before. So we now need to get ready for the doubles, as I said.

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