THE CHAMPIONSHIPS

July 2, 2024

Lorenzo Musetti

Press Conference

L. MUSETTI/C. Lestienne

4-6, 7-6, 6-2, 6-2

THE MODERATOR: Questions in English, please.

Q. Can I ask you a question about your backhand? The big one-handed backhand, people don't think of that as so great on grass necessarily, but you slice it. You have an opportunity to slice it. How did you learn that, and does it give you an advantage maybe? How do you approach it?

LORENZO MUSETTI: I mean, I think that definitely the variation with the slice is very helpful here, especially in grass. I have been using the variation and the mixing between the slice and top really well, I think, in the past weeks.

Yeah, definitely, I played three tournaments on grass, counting this. They were completely three different conditions. Stuttgart was probably the fastest. Queen's, the middle one, and here today I found it really not that fast, honestly. Probably because the grass is a little bit higher, and the ball, it's really bouncing really low, but not that fast.

So I definitely say that, yeah, probably it helped me a lot on the defensive side to turn around in offensive position. So, yeah, I don't know if it's an advantage or not, but I'm probably using well this mix.

Q. Have you always had that? Like from the time you were a kid did you play like that on this surface?

LORENZO MUSETTI: Yeah, honestly, when I was around 10 to 12, I was mostly playing only slices. So I had a huge continental grip on the backhand, so it was not easy to spin the ball and going, let's say, over the ball.

I was doing a lot of drop shots, a lot of slice, a lot of stuff with the hands. So, yeah, since I was a kid, I was always doing that.

Let's say I developed more the part of the one-handed backhand, of course. But, yeah, since I was a kid, I was always playing like this.