CHINA OPEN

September 30, 2023

Yuan Yue

Press Conference

YUAN YUE/E. Mertens

3-6, 6-1, 6-4

THE MODERATOR: Questions in Chinese, please.

Q. First victory in the China Open. The first victory by a Chinese player. How do you feel?

YUAN YUE: Happy because I'm the first one to play, so of course I have the first victory.

Q. Starting from the Asian swing, Mr. Zhang has been your coach. Is it a temporary situation or a permanent change?

YUAN YUE: Mr. Yang is still in my team. Mr. Zhang Yu comes to consult me when he is available when I am in China.

Q. After losing the first set, how did you adjust mentality-wise?

YUAN YUE: Losing the first set, it was mostly about my return. I wasn't directing accurately. Mr. Zhang also told me to watch the balls, to aim accurately, then return.

If I don't return well, then my opponent doesn't feel any pressure. That was the key.

Q. In Prague, your first victory on the tour. Just recently first victory against a foreign player. Today first victory in the main draw. Within a short time frame, very big improvement. What did you do? How did you make the turnaround? In what aspects did you see improvements? What was the key to such success?

YUAN YUE: I would like to thank the wild card in the China season because my ranking wouldn't be enough for the qualifications. With the wild card in the main draw, that was very helpful. You can see in the quallies, even winning one match was quite challenging for me.

More opportunities, more encounters with top players, step by step you eventually see your improve. I think that is the key.

Q. Do you think you are a person who is good at taking opportunities? Is that your personality?

YUAN YUE: Taking advantage of opportunities, I think when the opportunities come, do you have the capacity to take that opportunity. If you are not capable, then you will lose. That's a normal thing.

It was one year ago, two years ago, I never had the opportunity to compete against top players. Myself, two years ago, I wouldn't even know what they were like.

If you have that opportunity, I wouldn't be able to adapt. It would be really challenging to take that opportunity. I wasn't able to take advantage of them.

Now, when I have more opportunities, when I have more matches with these players, I'm able to have longer rallies, increase my momentum, or closing the gap between me and those players.

Against this backdrop, I will feel I am more prepared. When opportunities come, I will be more confident or I would say it's more possible for me to take those opportunities.

It is not like that you can take advantage of opportunities when the opportunities come, or personality-wise if you're good at opportunities. I think it's all about your capacity, your capability in doing that.

Q. Could you talk about your feeling about the crowd. We could all hear it. How did you feel?

YUAN YUE: There wasn't any negative impact, at least for this year, because day one, facing a match like this, no matter how much support I get, I think I still get nervous. I still get nervous. I still feel pressure. My heart was still pounding. When I was losing the match points, when I was losing the opportunities...

Of course, the support was very important. When we were traveling overseas, most of the time I was on the away ground. It is very special to feel such support from the home crowd. It was like a star player's reception. That was really helpful.