ROLAND GARROS

September 27, 2020

Elise Mertens

Press Conference

E. MERTENS/M. Gasparyan

6-2, 6-3

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. Talk through the match, how you felt out there, the conditions. Are you ready game style-wise for the conditions you're going to have to play through?

ELISE MERTENS: I mean, it's definitely not easy. I think you have kind of like three rain delays. At the end it was starting again, but I wanted to finish the match so quickly.

But, yeah, conditions are very different. I think it's harder to win a point. You have to work for the point a lot more. Lower bounces. But, you know, it's for both of the players. Everyone has to adapt their way to win the match.

I think at the first set, with the rain delay, it was a little bit more difficult to find the rhythm. So, yeah, there were like two breaks. But afterwards, I mean, we stayed on the court, a couple points, I felt like she was hitting a lot of errors in the first set. I was just putting my balls in. It was enough then.

Yeah, in the second set she started to play more aggressive. I felt like at 2-3 I needed to step up my game a little bit more, which I did.

I'm not pleased with the level I played maybe because I don't know if you can play your best level in these conditions. Definitely not the level that I want to play in further matches (smiling).

But it was enough today.

Q. In the break you and Robbe spent time trying to work on a more aggressive game style. We saw that a lot on the hard courts, in Prague. On these type of courts can you play the way you want to play or do you feel it's better to revert back to being a little bit more defensive and patient?

ELISE MERTENS: It's a little bit both because if you're too aggressive, on this kind of surface that it is right now, then you'll just hit and sometimes you can get through it. But on the other hand you can be too defense because, yeah, it's not just the way I want to play. Also you'll be in defense the whole time.

Q. You play Kaia Kanepi next. Big hitter. What is the challenging of playing her here at Roland Garros?

ELISE MERTENS: Yeah, she's a big hitter. I'll have to play aggressive against her, also get a lot of balls back on the other hand. But yeah, I think in these conditions it's very hard to make a point in the first three shots. I'll just have to find my way to get the point.