TMS MONTE CARLO

April 11, 2005

Thierry Ascione

THIERRY ASCIONE: Yes, I didn't lose many matches since the beginning of the year. Everything is going well. I'm still far back in the rankings, though; I only played six months last year. We'll see what will happen at the French Open. But if I am able to improve my ranking by then, it will be happiness.

THIERRY ASCIONE: No. It lasted a long time. There were many changes during that period. I played Davis Cup. From then on, many things happened very fast, and I was not able to cope. I started playing bad. I lost many points. When you are in that type of period, you try to get out of it as fast as possible, and I believe I'm out of it since the first of January. But what happened is that things went too fast and I was not able to manage the situation. After that, since I was losing, I lacked confidence because I didn't have enough wins under my belt. It was a lack of experience. I remind you that I came out of nowhere.

THIERRY ASCIONE: Yes. I lost my match 7-5, 6-4, 6-4, and a journalist asked me, "Do you believe this is the right place for you?" I took that as a slap in the face.

THIERRY ASCIONE: I don't remember, there were so many of them. But after, I qualified for all the Super 9s and I started defining higher and higher objectives. I was alone to manage all of that. I changed my coach thinking it would be the right solution, but it was not, so I went back with my former coach. I'm feeling fine with him now. Some players are Top 30 and they don't play the Davis Cup; I was on the Davis Cup team, so I have no regrets. I am only 24 years old, and I still have six or seven years to play.

THIERRY ASCIONE: Maybe. Maybe I should have put my pride in my pocket, but I tried to make it and I wasn't successful. Maybe it was a mistake. Because if I had played the challengers, I would have won many points, so maybe it was a sin of pride.

THIERRY ASCIONE: Yes. I believe now I'm playing better than last year, although my ranking is not as good as it was last year at this period. But some other players have more serious problems than me, like losing people who are close to them. So I'm happy with my situation.