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BNP PARIBAS WTA FINALS SINGAPORE

October 22, 2018

Andrew Bettles

Kallang, Singapore

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. Can I ask you to speak on how Elina is feeling today? Yesterday she was a little bit sick during the press conference.
ANDREW BETTLES: Yeah, I think she was a little bit dizzy. We practiced this afternoon. She was fine.

Q. She's quite a demonstrative player. When you come out on court for a coaching consult, what's your approach? Is it to try and get her to be a lot more positive or tactics or a mixture of both? What's in your mind when you get out there?
ANDREW BETTLES: Yeah, it's tough. I mean, I feel out the situation what she needs, as well. A lot of the time just maybe encouragement, a bit more direction. And then it's easy when you're coming on as the coach to try and overload information, because you're watching from the side and you're thinking, oh, this, this, this, but try and make it simple, as well.

Q. Do you use any of the SAP coaching stuff for your insight when you go on, or is it afterwards when you do a debrief of the match?
ANDREW BETTLES: No, I always have it next to me. I don't bring it on the court, but I'm kind of looking at the stats or anything, anything like that that keep coming up. I'll look at it.

Q. The coaches who were here yesterday were not really for on-court coaching. I'm wondering what your opinion of it is, in general?
ANDREW BETTLES: I think it's good. I like it. I mean, it gives us more involvement, so that's a good thing.

I think consistency would be nice, though, just because there is the difference between the slams and the WTA events. So it's kind of you can coach in the WTA, but then, when you go to the slams, which are the biggest, you kind of have your hands tied a little bit in that sense. So that's where it becomes difficult, I think.

Q. How much of coaching is tactical and technical versus psychologist?
ANDREW BETTLES: I don't know. Yeah, it's a little bit of everything. I can't put an exact percentage on it completely.

Q. Which aspect are you most comfortable with?
ANDREW BETTLES: I guess I kind of just focus on the practices and the job at hand. Then you're kind of always feeding them information in terms of mental -- yeah, the mentality and stuff. I wouldn't focus -- I don't do specific mental sessions. It's all kind of tennis and it's all linked.

But, yeah, I'd say more on to the tactical and technical side of things.

Q. Obviously when you started with Elina and the work you did before with Ana and other players, you were hitting partner. That's your role within the team. But within her team in particular, it seems like your role has evolved over time. Even when under Thierry, you were kind of the, seemed like, the traveling voice that was right next to her. And then now obviously the team, you are seemingly now the primary voice, especially here in Singapore. How has your role in that team kind of changed and do you consider yourself, yeah, more in a coaching role now?
ANDREW BETTLES: I think with Thierry I was kind of the assistant. When he did the weeks, he was the head guy. Yeah, I was kind of -- I took a step back. But because it was only 15, 20 weeks a year, I ended up doing a lot of stuff individually.

So now when I'm here on my own, like I was in Singapore last year, it's, yeah, it's easy. It's not really different, kind of coaching her or being the assistant. When Thierry was around, we tried to keep it the same, because she had lots of success, anyway. I'd speak to her before the match, would do the same, and Thierry who have his part in it.

Yeah, sometimes it's a bit of a balancing act, working with different people, but we have a good relationship. It's working well for the moment.

Q. When you first kind of got into this gig, is coaching and full-time coaching, is that the end goal for you? Is that what you have been working towards and what you want in your career?
ANDREW BETTLES: Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I guess when I first started working with Ana under Nigel, it wasn't really something I was thinking about, but now I have kind of been in it a while and progressed. Yeah, yeah.

Q. Since you started working with Elina, when she started, she was sort of a consistent top-20 player, and since you've started working with her she's top 10, top 8, making Singapore two years in a row. What do you think is the biggest change she had to make from being that top-20 player to now making Singapore two straight years?
ANDREW BETTLES: I guess she was on that kind of track anyway. She was young so she was developing. Each year she's a little bit more mature.

I think the big thing that we kind of added as a team was just making it a bit more aggressive, a bit more comfortable, stepping in, taking it on.

And she's always been amazing, running, defending, fighting, that's kind of her base. And just adding in, taking it on, coming to the net a little more, going after your first serve, I think they have been the big differences.

Q. What about the need of finding a fitness trainer in the offseason for next year? Has that been the toughest part of this year, balancing keeping her physically fit and keeping her mentally ready for these matches?
ANDREW BETTLES: Not in particular. I think it's always difficult, especially when you're doing these long trips, you know, because the focus is on tennis. So it's difficult to get some physical work in.

But, no, I haven't really found -- it was the same as last year. Yeah, every player has the same, I think.

Q. She mentioned last year maybe nerves had a bit of a factor, so it was a bit disappointing to finish the year the way that she did. She also mentioned she felt that people didn't think she deserved to be here. What do you think her mindset shift has been in the last 12 months?
ANDREW BETTLES: Yeah, it was a different scenario coming in this year. Last year she had an amazing year. She was absolutely one of the favorites for the tournament. And she kind of came in and then lost the first matches, and then it was a bit of a shock because no one really expected that. It was nice on the flip turn this year to come out and have a great first match.

In terms of not deserving it, I don't think -- it's math, isn't it, from January to the end? So I don't think that comes into it. What's kind of been nice is in the last few days is kind of a bit of a relief she made it, because we didn't actually know until Wednesday, so the last couple of weeks have been kind of -- we have been checking everything and then even the Moscow week it was out of her hands.

So she was playing with a little bit of no pressure, because when it's out of your hands, you fear the worst, right, that you're not going to be in it? When we found out she was in, it was kind of with relief and she can just go out there and play now. So I think you saw a little bit of that yesterday.

Q. In terms of her mentality going into big tournaments, this tournament, the slams, obviously everybody talks about expecting a lot from her because we see what she does on tour. When she talks to you and gives you some insight into kind of what the difference is in terms of what's going on in her head or in her gut at the bigger events compared to maybe what's going on in tour-level events, what are kind of the key things you guys talk about of trying to mitigate to make it a more seamless transition?
ANDREW BETTLES: I mean, yeah, we have talked about it a lot and there's lots -- I guess we haven't found the perfect answer yet. So we are still trying things out.

I think with the slams and even here, there is a little bit more time to think everything over because you always have a day in between, where in the other tournaments it's back to back to back.

Just trying to treat every tournament the same because you play in the same format, that's the idea, but it's not. Yeah, we're still working on it and trying to find out the right, that magic formula.

Q. Elina hadn't had a ton of success against Petra in the last couple of years. How do you prepare her for a player like that who it's been a while or it's a tough head-to-head? How did her performance last night kind of change the goals or maybe the preparation heading into the rest of the round-robin phase?
ANDREW BETTLES: I wouldn't say it changes everything, because each match is so important, you've got to treat each match like a knockout match anyway.

It's interesting, because she played Petra in February or whatever, and I was kind of looking through my notes and I had written so much. It was almost like it was overcomplicated, because she hadn't had the best record. So I was looking at it, and it was, like, if this happens, this happens, do this, do this. It was almost too much. So I think we tried to simplify everything and just focus on her mindset and the mentality for the match a little bit more.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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