Good article with quotes from both Felix and his coach.
Tebbutt: Feeling winning & losing
Jul 05, 2019
written by:
Tom Tebbutt
It was ironic that after he won his third-round match 7-6(1), 6-2, 6-1 over Reilly Opelka of the U.S. on Friday at Wimbledon, Milos Raonic was asked how he dealt with an occupational hazard of being a professional athlete – losing.
“Let’s be honest,” Raonic answered, “as tennis players, even if you’re Roger or if you’re Rafa, we are all a bunch of losers many times throughout the year. You sort of cope with these things – try to get rid of them. But they hurt. I think because they hurt is why the players play so well. You do everything in your power to avoid it
Raonic is 28 and Félix Auger-Aliassime is 18 and has not been quite as schooled in the hard knocks of winning and losing tennis matches as his older fellow-countryman. Following his 6-4, 7-5, 6-3 loss to Ugo Humbert of France of Friday in No. 1 Court, Auger-Aliassime was nearly inconsolable, and at his post-match media interview said about the match, “It’s hard to analyze and find the words. A lot of things didn’t go well today. I wasn’t mentally in a good state of mind. I felt kind of empty – but not physically.”
The match essentially turned in the second set when Auger-Aliassime couldn’t hang onto a 5-2 lead and Humbert ran off five games in a row to win it. For all intents and purposes, the match was over, especially when Humbert broke serve in the opening game of the third set. “I think even when I was ahead,” Auger-Aliassime said about the second set, “I felt that at any moment the match could get away from me. I wasn’t in control. I felt my game was super fragile. Even when I was a break up, every time I served a little worse, he hit a couple of good returns and it was a kind of free fall. It’s up to me to find the solutions. It’s one of the hardest days I’ve been through this year.
“I’ll take some time to see what I could have done better. What I’ve got to do is get back to work. I’ve got lots of things to improve – including how to handle a match like that. It’s a little embarrassing.”
His coach Fred Fontang was able to offer a more objective analysis, saying about the result, “Physically Félix was fine. The first thing you have to do is say ‘bravo’ to Ugo – he really had a good game for grass and played a solid match. As for Félix, he’ll have some regrets about the second set. He could have finished off the second set and then it might have been his match. After that Ugo really loosened up and Felix was a little down. It was tough for him.”
When it was suggested to Fontang that Auger-Aliassime is still only 18 and has lots to learn despite his remarkable accomplishments so far, the 49-year-old Frenchman said, “What you have to remember is that we didn’t expect Félix to have such good results on grass – a final (Stuttgart), a semi-final (Queen’s Club) and a third round here. It’s not really what we expected so it’s very positive. At the same time you’re always disappointed after a loss in the third round of a Grand Slam.”
Auger-Aliassime had nine double faults compared to two for Humbert. Fontang commented about that fairly high number (along with 11 aces), “He served really well at Stuttgart and at Queen’s. Here (at Wimbledon) the courts are a little slower and he got fewer free points on his first serve. So he kind of forced his rhythm, lost his rhythm and that showed in some crucial moments. He had a little doubt. And that was the case in a few other areas of his game.”
Auger-Aliassime double-faulted to set up the break point that Humbert converted for the only break in the second set. He also double-faulted at 5-all to lose his serve for the second time in a row in the second set. His forehand was also shaky at times, with several flying long or being mishit. He had 32 unforced errors to 22 for the 21-year-old Frenchman and was vulnerable on his second serve – winning just 35 per cent of second serve points to 61 per cent for Humbert.
A lefthander with neatly-angled ground strokes, Humbert sensed that Auger was not feeling his best. “At the beginning I felt he was nervous,” he said about Auger-Aliassime. “And during the whole match as well. It made me feel stronger.”
On Thursday, Humbert and his partner Marius Copil of Romania played a doubles match in 12,345-seat No. 1 Court – losing 4-6, 6-1, 6-4, 6-0 to Andy Murray and Pierre-Hugues Herbert. It was a loss that probably played a part in Friday’s win over Auger-Aliassime.
“Going onto the court against Murray and Herbert yesterday (Thursday) really helped me,” Humbert said. “The court was pretty impressive. It’s quite big. But I already had my bearings and wasn’t surprised. That was an advantage. It was really positive to have played yesterday in that stadium.”
There has been a lot of hype about Auger-Aliassime with his fantastic rise up the rankings to his current No. 21 spot. That translated into unrealistic hopes and even London bookmakers putting him in the top-five favourites to win the title this year. Humbert, on the other hand, is playing on grass for the first time in his career and his low, penetrating ground strokes and strong serving have allowed to make a successful transition.
A seemingly bright and personable young man, he was quite poetic afterward about his state of mind during the match, noting, “I felt really serene, even at the end when it came time to close out, I felt serene. It was genuine happiness, real pleasure – hitting hard, making a good shots, finishing off points. There really wasn’t any pressure. It was really a fun sensation.”
Auger-Aliassime gave the impression of feeling little of that freedom – likely having to do with the weight of expectation. He and Humbert are friends and practiced together before the ATP 250 event in Lyon, France, in May. The Frenchman admitted that gave him a chance to become more familiar with Auger-Aliassime’s power game.
He will now face top seed Novak Djokovic in Monday’s round-of-16 while Auger-Aliassime is going to take a break before the summer hard-court season in North America. “He’s supposed to play Atlanta (July 22nd), and Washington and then Coupe Rogers,” Fontang said. “But we’ll have to see if he might need some more rest.”
As down a day as it was on Friday, Auger-Aliassime received high praise from one of the good guys of Canadian tennis – Vasek Pospisil. Talking to a pair of Canadian reporters, the 29-year-old from Vancouver could not have been more generous in his praise of his younger compatriot.
“Félix is like one of the more genuinely nice people that I’ve met on the tour,” Pospisil said. “People have nice personalities – but personality is very different from character. You can show your personality on camera and everyone is ‘oh yeah he’s great.’ But then they can be very different. But he’s like – he’s Felix. He’s a really good kid.”
http://www.tenniscanada.com/news/te...Q0x_2XWJkIhToqN9sFj6YpHF_cklRSsRSh0-1wtvNspQ8
