ROLAND GARROS

June 3, 2022

Gilles Arnaud Bailly

Press Conference

G. BAILLY/M. Pawelski

1-6, 6-1, 6-2

THE MODERATOR: Congrats on the win. Thoughts about today's match?

GILLES ARNAUD BAILLY: Yeah, it was a crazy match. During, yeah, the first set, I was already 6-1 down. Yeah, it went so fast. And I was happy that the rain came and I could, yeah, talk about with my coach the tactics a little bit, what I should do better. Yeah, so I was a bit lucky.

And then, yeah, coming into the second set I changed completely my game plan and he had difficulty to deal with it and, yeah, it turned out very well, so I'm very happy.

Q. What did you do during the rain delay other than, you said, talk to your coach, but physically, what do you do to prepare yourself to go back out there, especially after having lost the first set?

GILLES ARNAUD BAILLY: Yeah, first set, I ate something and then I took a cold shower to calm myself a little bit, and then I watched something funny, just to, yeah, calm me down and just try to forget the first set and just try to, yeah, to start the match saying, okay, it's a new set, okay, you lost the first, but it's a new match. So, yeah.

Q. What was the funny thing you watched?

GILLES ARNAUD BAILLY: No, it's something in Belgium, it's like TV show. And, yeah, I like it very much, so it's, yeah, you will not, yeah, you will not understand.

Q. Looking ahead then to tomorrow, chance to become Roland Garros champion. It's not something that many Belgian players have managed in the past. What do you think your approach will be to the final and how special would it be if you managed to win it?

GILLES ARNAUD BAILLY: Yeah, first I think I'm going to enjoy it so much because, yeah, it's not every day that you stand in a Grand Slam Junior final. So it's nice to be there.

And playing a French guy with the French crowd, hopefully there will be a lot of people. They will not cheer for me, I know that, but, yeah, it's going to be crazy experience and I'm looking forward to play it.

Q. In terms of how this would, should you win or even not, how this would rank in terms of your career so far and how you hope it might spur you on to achieve even more in your junior career and your pro career?

GILLES ARNAUD BAILLY: Yeah, it was certainly not my expectations here to play here the final. I just came here like, okay, it's my first Roland Garros, see a little bit how it works and try just to enjoy it as much as I can.

Yeah, every match, I play better and, okay, I save some match point in the third round. And, yeah, all the time were very close matches. And also for the future, yeah, okay, now with this Grand Slam final I can, yeah, I take a lot of points so I can play the 15K tournaments and we will see how it goes there.