US OPEN

August 31, 2020

David Goffin

Press Conference

D. GOFFIN/R. Opelka

7-6, 3-6, 6-1, 6-4

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. How big was the beginning of the third set when he gave you the first opportunities?

DAVID GOFFIN: Yeah, it was a very important moment. But not only that moment. Of course, it was the first break of the match from my side, but after that I started to feel much better, more confident on the return.

From the first break in the second game of the third set, I started to return much better, to be more confident. It was probably, yes, the key of the match. After that I had many opportunities, but he was serving always good.

At the end I broke him two other times. It could be more if I was, yeah, a little bit more precise. I had opportunities until the end. I was very focused, very solid. It was a good match.

Q. When you have such a dangerous guy who can take the racquet out of your hand, how happy are you you were able to do what you had to do in four sets?

DAVID GOFFIN: It was great because you never want to play that kind of guy first round of a Grand Slam, especially on fast surface. Against that kind of player, big guy, you don't control everything. You can even play well, it's just you lose your concentration for a few seconds and you can lose the set. He can be in confidence, as well, hit some amazing shots. All of a sudden, the same: you lose the set.

It's something that sometimes you don't control, and sometimes you prefer have the match in your racquet, feel that if you play your best, good tennis, you win.

Against him it's never the case. You can play well and you can lose.

Q. Last week you had Kim at your match. I've seen some different players walking around to watch matches in their spare time. Have you found yourself doing that at all?

DAVID GOFFIN: Yeah, of course. It's so nice to have the opportunity to see all the matches, to walk between the courts and watch when it's important moment on a match or when it's an opponent that you want to see live. It's very good. Most of the time you cannot go out, otherwise you are in the fans and you cannot walk between the matches. It's tough.

There it's quite nice. You have a suite, so I can watch the match on center court, when you have lunch, watch all the players. It's quite nice for us, yes.

Q. Is there any match in particular that you remember from last week that you got to see?

DAVID GOFFIN: No. For once I can support the players from my country, a few of the girls, because we don't have any men in the men's singles. We have a lot of girls. I watched a little bit.

I was expecting also the comeback of Kim Clijsters last week. It will be for tomorrow I think. This could be, for example, a match that I could watch tomorrow live, the match of Kim Clijsters. Could be nice.

Q. How easy is it to lose concentration when there's nobody in the stands cheering, no crowd noise?

DAVID GOFFIN: I think, yes, it was completely different conditions. Especially against him I think it was an advantage for me to play in front of an empty stadium because you never know. You feel the pressure, you have to stay very focused the whole match. When you feel the pressure of the crowd on your shoulder, everybody's behind Reilly, it would have been tougher I think today.

I think to play in an empty stadium today was more advantage for me.