ROLAND GARROS

September 29, 2020

John Millman

Press Conference

P. CARRENO BUSTA/J. Millman

6-3, 6-2, 7-5

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. There was a bit of a comeback in the third set, then five games in a row went out the window. Talk about that situation, what happened there.

JOHN MILLMAN: Look, it's pretty self-explanatory if you watch it. He hit winners. Yeah, if you go back and watch it, it's just him hitting winners off everything. So, yeah, he caught fire. Yeah, I mean, not much you can do. Hit winners, played ridiculous.

Q. Conditions obviously would not be working in your favor.

JOHN MILLMAN: Yeah, to an extent. It's not terrible for me. I mean, when you play against some of these higher seeds that grow up on the clay, yeah, it's not ideal. I mean, it's so slow out there, it's unbelievable.

The weather, it's cold. It's heavy out there. The balls are not going anywhere.

Look, to an extent you can try to make it physical, but you just don't get any type of purchase on any of your shots. To an extent against a fair few of the guys, it might help me out. When you play against some of these top, top-seeded players that grow up on this surface, then your work is cut out for you.

Q. Can you touch on the frustration you might have been going through during that match, not being able to do necessarily what you might have wanted to do.

JOHN MILLMAN: Yeah, look, it's challenging. You want to stay present, stay in the moment. I was trying to do that as best as possible. I think you've also got to, when you're out there, sometimes acknowledge that your opponent's probably just having a pretty good game, pretty good day in the office. He's been playing some really good tennis lately.

You could see a guy there that's got full confidence in his game right now. Look, I was trying to weather the storm for a fairly large part of that time, to be honest with you. Then I managed to actually string together a couple of pretty good games. He probably dropped his level just a tiny bit. Then he kind of swung a bit freely towards the end there. I felt like he was almost giving you the set. He kind of just teed off and swung freely to almost reset in the fourth. But everything went in.

Yeah, when that happens, you are just kind of disappointed, and you get ready to play some European indoors.

Q. What are you going to be playing? Are you in one sense relieved to be getting off the clay?

JOHN MILLMAN: Look, I don't mind the clay. I felt pretty good on it. I thought I played pretty well in Rome, won a match there. Had a pretty tough one with Schwartzman, who ended up going on and playing some pretty good stuff.

I don't mind the dirt. I find this place pretty frustrating. I think I played it five times now, main draw. Every time I seem to play a pretty good player in first round. If you go back and look at the draws, I think it's been Isner, Bautista Agut, Shapovalov, Zverev and now Carreno Busta. They can all play all right tennis.

Yeah, look, I'm probably looking forward to getting off it, hopefully reset and go again. Can't go home obviously because of COVID, the two-week quarantine you have to face when you go back home.

You haven't really got any other choices but to keep playing.