Felix Auger-Aliassime – Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. How did you feel about that one?

FELIX AUGER-ALIASSIME: Feels great, obviously. Another tough win. Fighting through tough three-setters against tough opponents. It’s kind of windy all week, as well, so tough to be that consistent on the serve as we saw from many players.

Yeah, really trying my best. It’s paying off. Giving my maximum effort physically, and mentally as well. Trying to stay composed, trying to still when times get tough stay positive and believe that I’ll find solutions as the match goes on.

All that being said, I’m happy with the win, for sure.

Q. You’re the most in-form player on the men’s tour. 14 wins. Can you say what you’ve changed in the new year, how the off-season went for you? You have two titles, 14 match wins.

FELIX AUGER-ALIASSIME: Well, yeah, last year was difficult for different reasons. At the end I was struggling with back issues toward the end of the year, Asia and indoors. Then kind of played my last match in Basel. So I guess I had time to recover and rest and go on vacation. Then I had maybe more weeks than other players to train.

We did some good job. I have to give credit to my coach, fitness coach, physio, everybody involved, mental coach, everybody that’s alongside. Not on the court, but with me on the side. They did well. I think that’s a big reason why.

Q. How do you deal with stats? When they get off the court, the NBA guys immediately have the stat sheets. For you personally, what’s the most important thing to look at or do you not do that straight after the match?

FELIX AUGER-ALIASSIME: Sometimes I look right away. Sometimes I’m curious more I felt like, let’s say, I felt like I served well or not. I want to know what are the numbers looking like because sometimes you have an impression, but it’s not really the reality. Sometimes it’s interesting.

But sometimes I guess there’s stat sheets that are pretty common to see. Then sometimes the coach will point out, or yourself, you’ll be, be careful because I don’t know, the points you’ve won on your second serve are very low, and you don’t want it to be below 40% because then it gets really tough. Sometimes there’s something that stands out. Sometimes it’s like a pretty average stat sheet, yeah.

Q. You’ve obviously been on the tour for a few years now with some great wins here and there. Knocking on the door to get right to the top. What are your plans to go to the next level in your career? What are the priorities? Fitness? Game?

FELIX AUGER-ALIASSIME: Yeah, well, I can’t jump… I’m trying to as much as I can. But you have to go day by day, week by week. I can’t jump that quick. I’ve been winning a lot already this year. You don’t win every week, every single week. Maybe Sinner last year, but even him (smiling).

Gradually I hope that this year, by the end of this year, I’m closing in on the top 10, hopefully even Turin. That would be a great year.

Going from there, I feel like when you start being consistent in other tournaments, dominating players in other tournaments, you come to the Grand Slam with a different belief.

I come to every Grand Slam feeling like I want to win, believing I can win. But it’s different when you’ve winning a lot on the ATP Tour. That’s the kind of momentum I’m trying to build and the kind of belief. If I do that, then hopefully in the years to come I’ll get my opportunity to lift one of those big trophies.

Q. You’ve been with your coach for a long time now, which is not really a common thing. What is your relationship like with him? How was it when Toni Nadal was also partnering?

FELIX AUGER-ALIASSIME: Well, on a human level we have great relationship. He saw me grow up really. Regardless of how our career goes, I mean, we have a great personal relationship.

Then in terms of tennis, obviously he was a huge help when I was 17. I started working with him. I still had my older coach. That was kind of my first years on tour. He had been with other players. He had been with Chardy, Pospisil, and a player himself. He was teaching me to be a professional when I was 18, 19.

We felt at 21 it would be great to get Toni’s help along the way, or someone like Toni. That was also good. We did some good things together.

But he’s kind of been the consistent pillar alongside me. That’s what I like around me, is just have to somebody that understands who I am, that I have a lot of belief in, a lot of trust.

We always are challenging each other, pushing each other. Even though we’ve worked together for a long time, we’re not stagnant. When times got tough in the last few years, we’re always pushing each other.

I believe he can improve as a coach and I can improve as a player. I don’t like as soon as things don’t go the right way, you toss everything out the window and look for something new. I think I have everything within myself also to improve.

Q. A couple days ago Mirra Andreeva was here and won the title. She said one of the things that inspired her that day was something LeBron James used to say in press conferences. She watches a lot of Kobe pressers, LeBron. There’s so much content out there, docuseries, is there anything that resonates with you, someone who you would pay specific attention to what they’re saying?

FELIX AUGER-ALIASSIME: Yeah, as time goes, sometimes there’s a new documentary that comes out, an interview. You kind of take a few things here and there.

But I feel like I was taking more things when I was maybe 19, 20, 21. I feel like turning 25 this year, I’ve got my mind pretty set on who I am and what I’m trying to be and how I’m trying to approach my career. Really more focused on that, improving myself, than trying to replicate something from the outside.

But I love sports in general. I find a lot of inspiration in many sports. Docuseries, like you said, some are great, some are not as good. The ones that are good, I mean, I think that’s why everybody in the world gravitates to sports: the emotions that you get, the lessons of life that you learn.

Q. With stats, do you think it’s a bit of a pressure or a bit of a privilege that you have so much information to help evolve your game? Is that something you take back and work on or add a little more pressure?

FELIX AUGER-ALIASSIME: Well, not pressure. I would say I think it’s all positive in the aspect it’s a bit maybe negative compared to before. I think it’s the same for many sports now. Since now there’s obviously a lot of data, a lot of coaching, it’s almost like everything is so calculated. You see in the NBA, they’ll shoot three-pointers because that’s the best way to go. There’s less maybe instinct of the player. I feel like before in tennis, maybe different game styles, more creativity.

Now you just feel like I’m going to stick with that and I’m not going to start going crazy, create stuff, because that’s what’s working with the stats. Maybe that’s the only negative part.

But I think that’s because of guys like Djokovic and all these guys, they pushed the bar so high that everybody needs to be performing.

Q. Who would you say is the best to help you cut out that excess data?

FELIX AUGER-ALIASSIME: Cut it out? I don’t look at all the data myself. We have obviously my coach. But he works with data analysts. There’s now many companies in sports and in tennis that are doing that very well. Some players even create their own companies.

My coach receives kinds of résumé of that, then he shares with me the few pointers that he thinks are important to remember. Now also with the coaching that’s available, he can shoot some things during the match.

I don’t try to have too much information because I try to follow what’s happening also on the court, to remember what’s working and seeing what’s not, yeah.

Q. A question about Giovanni’s serve. What do you think of his serve? He goes for two big serves instead of a second serve.

FELIX AUGER-ALIASSIME: That’s kind of what we were talking about with the stats. He probably believes that going for two first serves is more efficient than going for a second serve. Then for the fans maybe you see less rallies, maybe it’s not as fun. Probably he looked at it with his coach and thought this is the best way to go for him.

We’ll see how it goes throughout his career. Hopefully it works for him. I know players will adjust, that’s for sure.

Like Daniil said a little bit yesterday, you kind of just guess, use reflexes, or you just take a side and say you’re not going to ace me on the T, but try to ace me there.

You can’t really stay in the middle because it goes too fast. If he serves well, either way you have to kind of block one side.

There’s many ways to go about it, but we’ll see how players deal with him in the next few years.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports