ROLEX MONTE-CARLO MASTERS

April 13, 2023

Lorenzo Musetti

Press Conference

L. MUSETTI/N. Djokovic

4-6, 7-5, 6-4

THE MODERATOR: Questions in English.

Q. How do you feel after such a win?

LORENZO MUSETTI: I mean, I'm extremely happy. A little bit tired, because the match was long. Was really a tough battle till the end.

I think, you know, when there is a lot of emotion, then after a match it's tough to recover well and take the adrenaline away of the match. But I will do my best for be ready for tomorrow.

Q. Was it difficult, the rain break? What did you do during one hour?

LORENZO MUSETTI: Well, just had a quick shower, change everything and try to relax but stay ready to be prepared to fight for another hour (smiling).

You know, just for me it was not tough, because he tell me to have more trust and belief that I could win the match tonight. You know, it's some sort of feelings that I had during the match that I still had chance.

Tonight I was able to take it, and at the end, last game was really complicated, but at the end it was like sort of relief for me.

Q. The beginning of this year was not very easy for you. How would you come from Marrakech where you lost against Alexander Muller to here where you have these three battles in a row and now you're winning against No. 1 in the world?

LORENZO MUSETTI: Yeah, was not such a great period for me, but even Marrakech had my chances to win against Muller, and I was one break up in the third. I started to play better compared to the last month in South America and in the States.

So, I mean, I kept believing on my team, on the hard work that we are doing every day, and I tried to adjust something. I think I worked pretty hard in the last month to achieve these results that they are showing up today. I'm really proud of my team and of my family that always support me.

Q. You played already three times against Djokovic before. Did you see today something different? We saw he was in bad mood. He had the sleeve. Did you feel that his ball was different with what you knew?

LORENZO MUSETTI: I don't know honestly. He's always such a unique player. You can never count him out. I think somehow we were both struggling at the beginning, because the conditions were not easy to play. There was a lot of wind. Was cold. Even the balls and the conditions were completely different from the other days and from the past day.

So probably I think our highest level especially in the match was at the end or at the end of the second set, and in the third set we were serving better. We were I think having more rallies, long rallies.

At the end I'm happy with the win, and I didn't focus too much on him. I just had to think of what I had to do to beat him. Even if he plays bad, he's still the No. 1 in the world, so you can never count him out and you have to kill him like 10 times.