US OPEN

September 6, 2021

Reilly Opelka

Press Conference

L. HARRIS/R. Opelka

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

THE MODERATOR: If you could, your thoughts on today.

REILLY OPELKA: Yeah, I mean, I don't think I served my best. I actually served poorly, to be honest. He served great. He was the better server. Then with me not serving at a high percentage of first serves, he's going to put a lot of balls in play, and just changes the whole dynamic of the match when I'm not serving great.

That's kind of what makes me so difficult and it really was off. Usually I can manage it better and make some adjustments throughout the match, which I was trying, but a little out of character for me to serve that poorly throughout the whole match, but he served great.

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. You had six aces the first game. What changed? Anything you were doing? Was it the conditions?

REILLY OPELKA: I served badly to start, from the first game I served poorly. I only made 40 or 50% of my first serves in that first game. I hit 6 aces in that game, but I hit 25 first serves, you know. I wasn't hitting my spots.

Yeah, it was an uncharacteristic serving day for me. That changed the whole thing. I mean, even if it was a characteristic serving day, I wasn't going to break him much. He was serving unbelievable. You know, if things went great for me and I played well, we would have been in breakers. I don't think there would have been any breaks.

Q. Did you feel like he was reading your serve? You played him pretty recently.

REILLY OPELKA: I don't think he's reading it. I mean, today, I don't know, had to have been around 50% first serves in at best. He's long; right? He's 6'4", great athlete, explosive. I don't think he's guessing. I think he's just a great athlete.

Then throw in me serving probably one of the worst serving performance I have had, "the" worst serving performance I have this summer, no doubt about it.

Even when I did hit my spots, I mean, he made some great athletic moves to the ball, because he's so long, he's 6'4" with long arms and he's quick.

Q. What do you make of your summer now this is your sort of, this part of the season? And just for American men, three of you made the fourth round here, you, Tiafoe, and Brooksby. Status check on where things are going.

REILLY OPELKA: Yeah, it's been a hell of a summer for me. Yeah, I learned a lot about myself this summer. I hope I can kind of just keep things rolling and just keep some of these lessons in the memory bank, especially today.

As far as American tennis is going, yeah, I mean, Brooksby's still in, Frances was, his match with Felix was unbelievable last night.

You know, we have I think 14 or 15 Americans in the top 100, so we've got a huge group of guys there. We just don't have the world beaters. I think it's just -- you know, I don't think we will have a Sampras, Agassi era of just dominance like that again. It's rare for any country. Russia is kind of the closest thing to it now. But I think Brooksby is our best, Brooksby and Korda are our best top candidates for maybe winning a slam of the young guys.

I think, yeah, it's frustrating. To some extent it's great that there is 15 Americans in the top 100 with a few knocking on the door. You look at Switzerland, they've got 28 (indiscernible) and two guys in the top 100 or whatever. You look at the States and you've got over a dozen guys in the top 100, and you don't even really have a Grand Slam finalist. I feel like it's just a matter of time before one of those kind of can break through. You know, my best bet would be on Korda or Brooksby.

Q. Do you feel like making the Canada final that you're approaching world beater hopes or conversation?

REILLY OPELKA: Possibly. Medvedev really beat me head to head. In a two-out-of-three set match, I didn't have much of a chance, you know, three out of five, which I didn't have much of a chance at the French Open with him. And then there is still another level above him, which is Novak. So, no, no, I'm not there, I'm not close yet.

Q. What do you think a tennis player can learn from you from watching you this year, most won't have your power or your size, but I assume that's not the reason you took the steps you took this year?

REILLY OPELKA: Yeah, I think off the court I do a lot of things great. I think I put a good team around, I think my coach, physio, I think everyone on my team, my mentors, people I learn from, people I surround myself with outside of the tennis court, I think those are all key ingredients for me learning and improving a lot.

Yeah, I think there is things you can learn from every top-20, top-30 tennis player. There is a reason why they say if the four or five best players in the world aren't doing something, there is a reason for it.

You look at some of the things those guys they do. There's just marginal gains. Novak brings his own food to the courts, he's eating his own meals to the courts every day. They have their own kind of racquet guys they're using, making adjustments to the racquets. They are spending a lot of money to get stats and data before they are playing. It's just those little marginal gains that make a world of difference in this business.

Q. You had said you learned a lot about yourself this summer. What did you learn?

REILLY OPELKA: I mean, I have learned how tough I can be to beat and how tough I can be to play, even when I'm not playing well. I learned I can win a lot of matches without serving great, without returning great.

You know, obviously it's not easy to win a match when you're not returning serve on the same day, but I have expanded my kind of my toolbox to win, to beat some top guys, some unbelievable tennis players when I might have a part of my game that's not firing.

Q. You talked before the tournament about physically you didn't know how your body would hold up if you went too deep into a Grand Slam. This is the farthest you have gone now in a slam. How do you feel physically and does being able to physically play four matches give you hope or are you pretty worn down?

REILLY OPELKA: Yeah, my body feels great. You know, it definitely helped playing straight-set matches the first three rounds. Yeah, my body feels real good. I even think had I won let's say today in four sets, let's say I won in four because I played four today, I feel like I'd be good to go again on Wednesday.

Pretty pleased with how my body reacted.