AUSTRALIAN OPEN

January 14, 2023

Casper Ruud

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Casper, welcome to Melbourne.

CASPER RUUD: Thank you.

THE MODERATOR: You've had really good results in Grand Slams last year. This year with a good position now heading for the No. 1. What is your outlook for your AO2023?

CASPER RUUD: Well, I don't really have one particular goal. I think if I'm able to reach the second week, that's going to be a good result, no matter how deep you go.

But obviously that's the goal, to be here in the second week and play matches, then see from there. If I'm able to make second week, let's see what happens.

I don't expect myself to reach another final or semifinal or whatever, but I'm going to try my best. I feel like I've had a couple of good days of practice now, and I hopefully can find my A game for the tournament. That's what's required to win matches and to go far.

Every match is going to be a tough one no matter who you play. It's best-of-five sets. It's also obviously going to be a physical challenge playing best-of-five sets, but I'm looking forward to it.

I've had good success last year playing best-of-five-set matches, so I hope I can continue that - what should I say - streak and keep going and playing well in best-of-fives.

Q. In the Netflix series, they show this scene of you getting really angry at Roland Garros when it started to rain and they were covering up the court. I thought it was funny because we never see that from you on the court. Curious, how hard is it to sometimes control that? It's obviously inside you. I feel like it was sort of a new appreciation.

CASPER RUUD: Yeah, no, I've said before that I get frustrated, as well. Maybe I don't show it as much on court.

In this particular case I did. The story was that we were supposed to hit from 2:00 to 2:30 or whatever. We got there like 5 to 2:00. The forecast said that it was supposed to reason from 10 past 2:00. That would ideally give us 15 minutes to hit.

I think it was before my semifinals. When you reach that far in the tournament, maybe 15 minutes is enough. But some boss of the court, the people responsible for the courts, the boss there or the chief, what they called him, had said that due to the forecast was supposed to rain. It didn't rain when we arrived to the court. As it was going to rain, they wanted to cover the courts even before the rain came.

That's why I was a bit frustrated. There are only two or three matches left in the tournament. They have the best clay courts in the world. I think they can take a little bit rain when they've come that far. They will have a year to prepare them for the next tournament.

It was frustrating not being able to speak with the boss that they claim to have got the information from, as well as people just speaking French to me, assuming that I know French. Like, I don't go to someone and speak Norwegian thinking they know Norwegian. It was also frustrating because the communication wasn't easy.

It was frustrating because it was the biggest match of my life, of my career. I feel like I wasn't given the opportunity to hit when I could have hit. It was tough to - I don't know - swallow or whatever.

In the end I was able to warm up in an indoor place. Rafa and Sascha, they played over three hours in two sets anyway so I had plenty of time. Worst case would be that we didn't get to hit at all because Rafa and Sascha could have gone much quicker, whatever, we wouldn't have time to go to this other place, and so on.

It was just a little stressful, I guess annoying. That's sort of why I let the frustration come out. I'm sorry to the guy who was responsible for covering the courts, but it was just at the time frustrating due to the fact he couldn't tell us in English what was really going on it was even more so frustrating.

Q. Was there ever a time in your life where you did let that emotion show on the court?

CASPER RUUD: I don't know. I don't know if I'm treated wrong, I don't know, not what I look at as maybe the right way, with the respect I would like to, I mean, I can get angry and annoyed, of course.

I know if there's an umpire fault or whatever, that can set some players off. I know the umpires maybe don't do it on purpose. They're humans, as well. Errors are made.

Look at tennis players. We make 30 to 60 unforced errors every match. If you're going to judge us by the unforced errors, there's going to be a lot to be angry about. If you cannot accept that maybe an umpire does one mistake per match or two, it's a bit silly.

They're all doing the best they can for us to play tennis. I've never felt on court that I was treated in a wrong way or in a bad way. I guess that's what can annoy me a little bit, but that hasn't happened on court yet luckily, so there's no need to be too angry.

Q. Before last year, before you made your first major final, I'm sure you had self-belief you could make it that far. How different is it mentally knowing and proving to yourself that you can do it?

CASPER RUUD: Not that different, honestly. I'm trying to stay humble and know that I'm not going to reach two Grand Slam finals every year for the rest of my career most likely. I would love to do it and I'm going to give it a try, but the odds are not in favor of that happening.

A lot of change obviously. Obviously a year ago I sat here announcing my withdrawal because I rolled my ankle the day before the match. Here we are, I've reached two finals.

But nothing has changed too much. Honestly I know that it's possible, which is a nice feeling. At the same time I know the competition is so hard and so strong that I cannot expect myself to do well every single time I play a Grand Slam.

A quarterfinal is a great result, in my eyes. A semifinal even. My best results here is a fourth round, which I still look at as a great result. If I'm able to reach fourth round this year, I'll be more than happy about it.

At the same time I know that my belief in reaching even further is there. I know that it does happen before, so it's easier in a way to think it could happen again.

But at the same time I know that there's no guarantee that I will ever reach another final in a Grand Slam in my career. Just going to try to keep doing hopefully the right things and do my best and see how far that can take me here, obviously all the other slams I might play in my future.