“I felt like a tennis player”, “not grotesque”, estimated Gasquet, beaten 7-6 (7/5), 6-1, 6-2 on the Rod Laver Arena by world number two Carlos Alcaraz. “First of all, I wouldn’t have signed for the painting, I came across one of the worst draws. I still managed to have fun on the court, especially in the first set. It was a big match at the start, there were a lot of very good points, there was a crowd, it was on Central: these were totally different atmospheres from the other matches. It’s obviously a different tennis than small courts or that sort of thing. I had big setbacks as I could do at the time. The tie-break is a shame. I saw myself winning that first set. It was a good match overall. It was nice for me to play on the Central, it had been a long time since that happened to me. It was also nice, in the first set, to feel that I was holding on well (…) The legs are not like before, but there are still sometimes some nice remains on the court.
For how long? “The desire to play is there. Obviously you don’t know until when. In any case, I had feelings on the court, I wasn’t dead, I didn’t feel grotesque. It’s good to experience them. I didn’t come for nothing. I still felt like a tennis player. We’ll see how the season goes, if I manage to come back a little… Otherwise, maybe I won’t play here again. But I played it quite a few times anyway. Since juniors, I have come around twenty times. I don’t have to be ashamed of the number of times I’ve played here.”
