EUTELSAT MONTE CARLO OPEN

April 22, 1996

Arnaud Boetsch

ARNAUD BOETSCH: I felt good. I wanted to have him play a long time and I wanted to break his momentum, but I wasn't feeling very perform -- my rhythm wasn't a very good one. Maybe it's for that reason. Also people were not clapping very much so I thought the match might not have been so great. I didn't feel it was that great either, but when I thought of it afterwards, I thought I had better shut up.

ARNAUD BOETSCH: I believe the match was a solid one. I don't believe I played a super match. He can be a very dangerous player, but at the same time, you have to make him play a lot. At the end of the second set, it was good because he gave it to me. This was good for me. I played well at 4-1, 4-2, I played a very good game, I was very solid, and it was important for winning the second set and the match. It's the part of the match I am very pleased with, before also because I won 6-2 the same in the first set. But at that stage it was very good. There was danger around.

ARNAUD BOETSCH: I did absolutely nothing. I didn't do anything the week after the Davis Cup. I visited my family. After I came here on Tuesday quite early and I started to train on clay. The first three days were very difficult. I was losing badly against all the players who were playing on that surface for a few days already. But little by little it became better and better. I was starting to get used to the surface and I was having good sensations.

ARNAUD BOETSCH: Yes. It's outside, so it's totally different. In Limoges, you have the feeling that the game is fast because it is indoors; there's no wind; you hit the ball early; you go up to the net, and conditions never move. It is really like playing indoors. When you play outside, it's different because when I wasn't winning the point after the third shot, I was becoming impatient, so you have to change your education. You have to learn how to wait a little bit and accept that the other player makes you run a lot. You have to learn not to win the point immediately. That's the main difference.

ARNAUD BOETSCH: I didn't go to Barcelona because I wasn't ready to play that tournament. I hadn't seen my family for a whole month. I wanted to be with them. I was not ready to leave three days after the Davis Cup to go to Barcelona and play on clay. This is the reason. I was tired also. I wanted to be fit again, and when you are tired, you risk having little injuries everywhere.

ARNAUD BOETSCH: Not yet.

ARNAUD BOETSCH: Does that mean he came only to play one round?

ARNAUD BOETSCH: Of course, winning the tournament, it's my ambition, but there's a great difference between what you want and what you are able to do. Taking things match after match. It's true. Now I have a good ranking at the ATP. My objective is to aim at a high level; not only to pass two rounds in a tournament and say "good-bye."

ARNAUD BOETSCH: The ambition is to win big tournaments like Monte-Carlo, Hamburg, Rome, and to go very far in a tournament of the Grand Slam like the French Open and why not win it. But these are only sentences. I don't want to be pretentious, but it's a beautiful dream. And I say to myself, "Okay, why setting limits? If I don't succeed, at least, I will have dreamt." But it's a lot of work. You cannot only think about it or talk about it. I am only saying this to you because I know you well. Passing one round in the French Open, reaching the eighth of final is not enough. I am 27 now. I still have three or four years to go, so I want to go as far as possible. I want to push myself to what I can do -- to a maximum. I am saying it to you, but don't repeat it too much. It's an objective. Many players who want to play well and who are among the top 15 or the top 20 have the same kind of objectives. I am not saying I want to be No. 1 in the world, no, but I have a lot of work ahead of me.

ARNAUD BOETSCH: I have a slippery relationship with clay. One has good relationships with clay if one is fit; otherwise it's a nightmare. We cannot win the point fast. We have to run, and we lose easily otherwise. Physically, I'm improving. I am better. I must improve even more. I must be more consistent in my matches. If it's the case, and if I continue in this direction, I will like clay more and more. This is the reason why I have to improve. And if I improve, I can think about winning big matches on clay. It's a surface I used to like a lot when I was young. I had good results on it. I went to the semifinals here and to the eighth of finals in the French Open. At times I was playing very well on clay. During the past two years I had not so good times on this surface, but I am feeling that I'm coming back to a very correct level and I believe I can play as well on clay as on fast surfaces or indoors.

ARNAUD BOETSCH: Yes, but we never talked about how to get prepared. I believe clay needs a special preparation. You have to eat up hours and hours of tennis, many points, and you have to be physically and mentally ready to stay a long time on the court; to battle on every point, and you have to expect that the rallies be long. It is not "boom, boom" like on a fast surface or indoors. Indoor surfaces were good for me during the years when I was not so fit and when I had trouble breathing, but clay is all the same surface that I like very much, and there's a lot of game on it. There are fabulous tournaments like Rome, Monte-Carlo. These are big tournaments for me, and I would like to be brilliant in them. But for that, I have to undergo a specific preparation.

ARNAUD BOETSCH: Of course, with ATP Tour, there are more tournaments on hard surfaces. There's the indoor season in the United States; in Australia. This means there are many fast surfaces. Clay is not quite like grass, but it's still a very short period. Of course, Thomas would like to have more of clay. He wins all the tournaments there. Myself, I didn't think about it enough. I don't know. There are already beautiful tournaments, and that's super. We have to keep them. If there no longer be those tournaments, it would be the death of clay. But there are quite a lot of tournaments. We have time to get tired.

ARNAUD BOETSCH: I haven't seen him play for a while. He was playing challengers. He came back to a very good level, I believe. I haven't followed his results. But clay is a surface he likes very much. He runs a lot and puts the ball into the court. For me it's a very dangerous player. He beat me the last times I played him. I don't remember, though. Starting from there, he certainly knows how to play. I will need to be in very good shape. Fabrice is a tough player.

ARNAUD BOETSCH: I'm playing four tournaments in a row. I'm playing Monte-Carlo, Prague, Hamburg, Rome, and then I'm going to Paris the week before the French Open to breathe the Parisian air.