I don't know. I mean, I think people don't always appreciate that sports people have, there is another part of our lives that is very important as well to performance. If you're happy away from the court and you're sort of your private and personal life is good, that will help everything. Helps your mindset; helps the way that you train; everything. So that is obviously for me is very good right now. That obviously helps performance, but also you still need to put in the hard work as well.
How have your mother and your now wife helped you to become the player and the man you are now ?
I’ve always said that for me I’ve always found it easier to communicate with women. I always had a great relationship with my grandmothers, with my mom and obviously Kim, we’ve been together from a very young age as well. And obviously Amélie too. I’ve found it very easier to speak and open up to women. We’ve all had different kind of impact or influences... My mom has kind of a cross over between the two, and Amélie obviously on my performances on the court so yeah I’ve always been close to the women in my life, spending a lot of time with them.
"When I talk emotions, how I’m feeling and stuff, it’s maybe easier to talk to Amélie"
Your mother was your first coach : are you still consulting her for tennis reasons, or is it back to being only mom and son ?I speak to my mom a lot but it’s not exactly the same as before. Once I started to get 22, 23, I started to know myself better, what I needed, what I wanted. I made some bold decisions regarding my coaching and my training, spent a lot of time training in Miami, working with Ivan Lendl was a big decision at the time, then with Amelie. She’d ask me how things are going and I’d tell her but it’s not like she really tries to kind of help in that sense anymore.
As you said you open up more easily with women, how different is it for you with Amélie compared to Ivan Lendl ?
It’s definitely different, just because different people. But yeah when I talk emotions, how I’m feeling and stuff, it’s maybe easier to talk to Amélie. Ivan had many strengths as a player and as a coach and I had my most successful events when I was working with him. But that’s one of the things… When I was younger and working with my mother and when Amélie now, there are certain things that for me - but maybe it’s not the case, maybe male coaches I’ve worked with would have been completely open to me expressing myself to them - I personally didn’t find as easy a thing to do. That’s not necessarily about the coach, that’s also about how the player feels as well.
Have you faced some remarks in the locker room when you hired Amélie Mauresmo, because it’s still pretty much a male game on your Tour ?
Yeah definitely. There were some rumors before it happened and I don’t think people took it seriously… And a few said some stuff to me and I remember them (sourire) because I felt like it motivated me more to make things work and I think also Amélie is very passionate about the game and she wanted to help me as much as she could ; she’s dedicated a lot of time to doing the job properly when she had a very nice life away since she retired. So I appreciate she’s taking the time to try to help me.
"Tennis should actually be proud of the fact that it’s really the only one sport in the world with the equal pay"
You’re quite the “feminist” of the ATP World Tour” : watching lots of WTA matches, supporting the women players, and the women athletes in general. Does this come from your education or from something else ?
My mom is very passionate about helping more girls playing tennis. She loves doing that, and I’ve obviously saw that from a young age. I think for me it’s been more the last few years and when I started working with Amélie, seeing the way people kind of reacted and responded to it : it made my feelings towards women stronger because I found a lot of the things said about her unfair and it wouldn’t have happened if I’d have worked with a man who won 2 Grand Slams and had been n°1 in the world. No one would have questioned the appointment. But a lot of people at the end of last year wanted to blame Amélie for my losses even though I spent hardly any time with her. I’ve always enjoyed watching certain women matches, I don’t enjoy watching all of them as I don’t enjoy watching all of the men’s matches. But there are certain female players that I really enjoy watching… And they deserve the same respect as the men. The only thing I disagree on a little bit is the best of five sets thing : for example in Wimbledon the men play best of five sets singles, best of fives sets doubles, physically you can’t do that. So you see many women playing single, double and the mixed double but the men can not do that cause if the 5 sets. But I completely agree with equal pay, especially in the combined events. Tennis should actually be proud of the fact that it’s really the only one sport in the world with the equal pay.
I read that you can sometimes be inspired mentally by how Maria Sharapova deals with her emotions : gender really doesn’t enter your thought process in general tennis wise ?
Yeah I think it’s an other misconception about the women’s game compared to the men’s game. There’s obviously differences as men and women have different issues to deal with. But I think the way people like to say on the women tour they’re more emotional but then you watch someone like Sharapova and mentally she’s incredibly strong, and emotionally Bouchard is an other one - for her age - I think she’s incredibly composed on the court ; and if you compare that to myself or Novak (Djokovic) or some other guys at the top the game… I mean I’m extremely emotional on the court, and I can also learn from them as well. I tried to learn from many different people and I think the women I mentionned there are mentally extremely strong and control their emotions extremely well. So that’s an other thing I don’t agree with. There are certain things away from the court that are handled differently by the coaches but on the court I see just as much emotions on the men’s tour that I see on the women’s tour.
Cette interview a été publiée en français dans Le Parisien du lundi 25 mai : A lire ICI.
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