ROLAND GARROS

May 25, 2022

Stefanos Tsitsipas

Press Conference

S. TSITSIPAS/L. Musetti

5-7, 4-6, 6-2, 6-3, 6-2

STEFANOS TSITSIPAS: Just like having a walk at the beach. Really fresh.

Q. Long match as usual. You're used to that. How do you manage to do such matches?

STEFANOS TSITSIPAS: I have to really work to get things in life. Things don't come easy. I refuse to give up. That's simply how it works with me. You never really think about getting back after being two sets to love. You just play it point after point. You just wish that your efforts will pay off on a longer scale, longer run.

You know, being in that situation is like, it's a mountain that you have to climb, and I was able to climb it and regain the momentum steadily but consistently.

Q. Knowing Lorenzo, did you know that it would be such a match?

STEFANOS TSITSIPAS: Absolutely, yeah. I said it. He's fighting. He's a talented player that has a very nice one-handed backhand. He knows the game on clay. He has grown up playing in these courts.

He's definitely a difficult opponent to face in any circumstance really.

Q. What was the key to victory today? When did you think it would go your way?

STEFANOS TSITSIPAS: Well, once I started finding my serve, my serve was really off from the first -- maybe not the first few games of the match, but after, it completely collapsed. It wasn't there. That threw me off a lot.

Once I really found my momentum on the serve, my routines and everything, I knew that it can be a different match. You know, I felt like I was serving better than him, creating more opportunities with my serve, pressing more. It would have been kind of not fair from my perspective to have a different outcome.

Q. What's your plan before the next match?

STEFANOS TSITSIPAS: Always physio, light, walk, activation. Tomorrow is a day for me to recharge and get even more battery than the next day.

Q. You said on court that at the start you didn't quite feel right. I just wanted to check. Did you mean in a physical way, energy-wise, mental way?

STEFANOS TSITSIPAS: Mental way, absolutely. Mentally, I don't know what it was exactly, but I was not there. I was somewhere else. I was frustrated with myself.

What did I do to kind of feel that way or deserve that in an opener like this, in a Grand Slam, you know. I think I was really focused too much on the future, thinking of other things instead of really being fully present in what I was doing at the time. But my fighting instinct came out in the third. I had no other choice, I guess. I really had to pull that off and go all the way.