MUTUA MADRID OPEN

April 27, 2024

Alex De Minaur

Press Conference

R. NADAL/A. de Minaur

7-6, 6-3

(Questions in Spanish.)

THE MODERATOR: Questions in English.

Q. I know enough Spanish to know you have been asked this question before, so I'm going to have to ask you in English, though. The main differences between what you saw last week and what you saw this week in Rafa, and also, you clearly weren't at your best today. Was that, do you think, because of things he was doing to you or were you just a little off?

ALEX de MINAUR: Look, I think, you know, it's never easy playing these types of matches obviously. You want to come out and play at a high level, but again, these conditions in Madrid make it a little bit more tricky to play the way you want to play.

You know, you play in Barcelona, and then all of a sudden this match over here, everything doubles. All the outside noise doubles.

Yeah, I wish I would have played better, but I think his level lifted, and he was looking quite good out there, if I may say.

Q. Rafa said before this match that he was not the favorite to win today. Do you enter the match thinking of you as a favorite or not?

ALEX de MINAUR: Look, this is what happens. I mean, you go out there to a match, and, you know, all the pressure in the world is on you by everyone, everyone in this room, everyone in media themselves. They assume things.

So, look, I think today was a tough match. I think I could have played better, and maybe if I come up and I play my best level, then I take this match, but we'll never know because I didn't bring that sort of level today.

Q. More generally speaking, how do you feel being part of this moment, which is more or less historic with everything surrounding Rafa, being part of that moment, everything around that. And speaking of history, maybe looking forward as well to maybe Davis Cup and Olympics, have you given that much thought as well?

ALEX de MINAUR: I think I'm sure you guys will talk to Rafa very soon, and he can speak about the moment a little bit better than I can.

Yeah, you know, I would have loved to have won today, but it wasn't the case. You know, I've just got to go back and just get better and improve on a couple areas for what's left of the clay season.

Q. What did you make of that incident at the beginning where Rafa thought he challenged? Was it tough to block out the noise of the crowd in those moments?

ALEX de MINAUR: Yeah, just another thing that happened in the match. Again, I don't know exactly what happened. I continued to play the point, and then all of a sudden I didn't know if my ball was in or out, and then the ref gave me the point.

So I didn't know what was happening, and then obviously the crowd got involved, but that was the whole match. I knew coming in what to expect, and I should have handled it better.