ROLAND GARROS

October 11, 2020

Timea Babos

Kristina Mladenovic

Press Conference

BABOS-MLADENOVIC/Guarachi-Krawczyk

6-4, 7-5

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. Congratulations. Excuse my ignorance, but you mentioned something called the (speaking French). What is that?

KRISTINA MLADENOVIC: I try to be brief here. It's a group, it's basically all the Frenches that were stuck with me, like we were all in this together in New York. So I'm pretty sure you know all of them: Benoit Paire, Gasquet, Barrere, et cetera.

We have this group since New York where we try to be -- I don't know how to say -- supportive. And since then the group is very active. We had rough, so far, Roland Garros for all of us because lots of consequences after this thing that happened to us there.

I just had to also dedicate, not that it was a game, but I had to dedicate also this win to them. They were really supportive, and, yeah, great friendship.

Then I just of course made fun and hope to see them as soon outside of the bubble to play cards, because that's the funny thing that put us out of the US Open.

Q. Well done and congratulations. For both of you, was winning today, did it sort of make up for what happened in New York?

TIMEA BABOS: It's definitely a relief. I'm always honest. I think this was the worst match we played in a very long time (smiling).

KRISTINA MLADENOVIC: Me, me, me.

TIMEA BABOS: No, we are a team. To win it at the end, it just shows how much we were struggling for the last couple weeks, let's say.

We had very, very rough September, especially Kiki, but obviously it affected me. I mean, I care for her and our friendship, not only the tennis. This is just tennis.

Okay, we were disqualified. It's unfair. But for what was happening behind it was tough for me also to see.

Then we were coming here obviously always with high expectations, but at the end with a little bit lower ones, because we really didn't know how we can manage.

Also, staying in the bubble, it's really not easy. This is my 23rd day in the same hotel room, guys. It's depressing. (Laughter.)

So I'm really, really happy after US Open to take the title here. It's somehow very, very special. I always say it's special, but this, it's different. It's like a weird feeling. It's even hard to describe.

I think we need again a little bit of time to really understand, like, what happened and I guess we're gonna have time again as we don't have tournaments.

So voila! It's a good way to finish, I guess (smiling).

KRISTINA MLADENOVIC: Finish the way we started. Good job.

Q. Kiki, you mentioned on court about being in a period of depression. How difficult was it for you, and how big a relief and a joy is this?

KRISTINA MLADENOVIC: Timi described it perfectly. I cannot describe you how -- again, I would like to give a shout out to Timi for really like carrying the team out there today. I rarely saw myself being that exhausted mentally and physically, especially on the Grand Slam final today, and she played a big part of our win today. I gave it everything the last two weeks during the rest of our matches.

This thing that happened in New York for me was -- basically I was isolated for two weeks, 10 days exactly in the room. I couldn't do anything. But it's overall two weeks, because it started the day before the tournament started. And it affected me so much mentally but also physically. Especially when you're French and when you love as much as me competing in Roland Garros, and when this thing happened to you like two weeks before Roland Garros, I cannot tell you how bad my preparation was, even though we tried everything to be ready for.

But my body was not following. Of course mentally was tough. I had also a tough outcome in my first-round singles. I was on the edge. I wanted to be great on court for my partner, because we deserved it after what happened to us in US Open. We couldn't compete.

To lift here the trophy, like Timi said, it's always special, but this time you cannot imagine like what relief and what pride it is to actually, even for me personally, to leave this tournament with such a reward that I cannot -- I still have to, like, wake up and believe it's actually true.