AUSTRALIAN OPEN

January 13, 2025

Alex Michelsen

Press Conference

A. MICHELSEN/S. Tsitsipas

7-5, 6-3, 2-6, 6-4

THE MODERATOR: Congrats, Alex.

ALEX MICHELSEN: Thank you.

THE MODERATOR: Last year you reached the third round here in Melbourne. Today you played great to take Stef down. May we say Australia your lucky spot?

ALEX MICHELSEN: Yeah, maybe it's my lucky spot. The only place I've got third round in a slam or a Masters 1000, so yeah, I'm feeling really good about the way I'm playing right now going into the second round.

THE MODERATOR: Questions.

Q. Can I ask about the fourth set that you ended up winning the match in. There were a lot of breaks of serve. I wonder how you were feeling at that point? You obviously played really well, but you have a big name ahead you that you are trying to take down. I imagine it was pretty nerve-wracking.

ALEX MICHELSEN: Yeah, I didn't take the most direct path, that's for sure. Shouldn't have got broken twice in the fourth. My serve let me down. Served double faulting way too much. But I was also returning really, really well. I felt like I was winning most of the baseline rallies when I was inside the baseline and controlling the point.

So I was thinking at 4-All, after I got broken twice, saying, you're still in this, just play every point for what it is. Yeah, I played a great 4-All game and got it done at 5-4.

Q. How are you feeling about your general place in the tour? You have been climbing pretty fast into top 50. It feels fast from the outside. I don't know how you feel about it. How much belief do you go into a match like that against a guy that's spent a lot of time in the top 10 recently? How do you feel about your own chances walking into a match like that?

ALEX MICHELSEN: Yeah, I feel great about where I'm at. I'm 40 in the world at 20 years old. I can't complain. I've put a lot of work in since I was very, very young. I'm very happy with where I'm at.

Obviously I want to be ranked higher, but I'm super happy with where I'm at right now. Going into a match like that, it's a little different, because I played Stef in Tokyo, and I took him down there. I kind of had a game plan of what I wanted to do.

It's obviously tougher to take out the bigger guys in the slams. Just kind of had the same game plan and executed, and I played really well today. So yeah.

Q. Does a player of Stef's vintage -- not that he's even that much older than you -- play differently than players who came up when you came up, approach the game? And if there is any difference, I'm sort of curious what it might be.

ALEX MICHELSEN: I mean, not really. I mean, maybe a little bit. I don't know.

Obviously I watched him a lot growing up, and I watched him on Next Gen and he finaled a couple of slams. I remember watching that whole match against Novak in the final of French Open. He was playing sick at the beginning.

Yeah, obviously he's got a little bit of aura on him. He's a great player. Yeah, I don't know what else to say (laughing).

Q. The reason I'm asking is because when he was in here before, he was talking about how the game has changed since he first broke in. You don't have that perspective except for the fact that you've played a lot more people your age, and you see how coming up with Carlos and those people, I'm sort of curious if you see it that way as well.

ALEX MICHELSEN: I don't think -- hmm. I feel like the game is just getting faster. That's what I feel. Everyone is becoming better athletes, and everyone can crank a serve and crank a forehand. I don't know. I feel like everyone is a better athlete. I don't think the game has changed too much, but I think it's definitely changed a little bit, yeah.

Q. You're only 20. How do you deal with your emotions on the court? You stay so calm. Do you work with a mental coach?

ALEX MICHELSEN: No, I'm my own mental coach. No mental coach for me. I stayed really composed today, but I don't do that every time, unfortunately. I'm working to get there.

But, yeah, it's taken a lot of work. Sometimes I just sit in my room and I meditate sometimes and tell myself, Stay calm under pressure. I did that really well today. Again, I need to get better at it. Sometimes I lose my head when I play, so yeah, it's definitely not the easiest thing in the world.

As a kid, I would throw my hat, throw my racquet. I would get pretty upset often. Yeah, it's just kind of in my nature, but I'm working on it.

Q. Alex, how much importance do you put on the American tennis ladder and sort of that race within a race on the rankings? Taylor is pretty far ahead of the rest of the pack with his results last year, but you're obviously climbing. I wonder if that's at all a sub-competition that ever motivates you or means anything to you?

ALEX MICHELSEN: I don't really think about it too much. I know I'm probably the sixth or seventh ranked American. I don't know exactly what I'm at right now. I mean, I don't think about it too much.

Taylor is pretty far and away. I'm not going to be No. 1 American any time soon, so I try not to think about it. I feel like most of us are good buddies. Obviously we want to beat each other when we play each other, but at the same time we kind of support each other.

So I don't look at it as a competition trying to get ranked higher than everyone else. I'm just trying to do the best I can.

Q. What do you think Taylor has made him so far and away the leader?

ALEX MICHELSEN: Well, he has I think become a much better athlete in the last few years. He's moving a lot better, and his serve and forehand are outrageously good. That's how I see it.

Q. How do you think you're different than you were a year ago when you were picking up some wins here?

ALEX MICHELSEN: I would say mentally a lot better. I didn't really have any tour experience, and this year I've got a whole year under my belt now.

I feel like that, and my serve and forehand have gotten a lot better, being able to play more offense in my forehand. Yeah, I would say that's about it. I don't think too much has changed, but I think the biggest change has been mentally.

Q. Just on the subject of the mental coach and you being your own mental coach, I just wonder what the process of that was like when you maybe realized, I need to actually do something about how I'm feeling on the court, maybe how I'm behaving in the stressful moments on the court? What was the sort of reckoning where you thought, I've got to do something, and how did that unfold?

ALEX MICHELSEN: Yeah, definitely. I've definitely lost a lot of matches just because -- not because I was playing bad, Because I was just bad mentally. I would miss one or two shots, and then I would lose my crap for a little while and then, boom, the match is over like that because these guys aren't going to give you anything out here. You have to be mentally on your game at all times.

Last year I probably lost ten matches that I should have won straight because of the brain. So, yeah, I have -- yeah, I don't know what else to say.

Q. I'm just fascinated you decided you're going to work it out on your own. A lot of people will turn to somebody. Why did you decide to do that?

ALEX MICHELSEN: I like being alone. I'm a loner.

I like sitting with my own thoughts and figuring stuff out on my own, yeah.

Q. Do you tap into the rest of the American group at all, being a loner? You've got a group of people who have come through what you're trying to come through now. Do you know them very well? Have you got to know them?

ALEX MICHELSEN: I know them, but I don't go to them for that kind of stuff. I have my two coaches, Jay and Robby. I talk to them about some mental stuff, but besides that, no, not really anyone else, yeah.

Q. Sorry, random one. I just remember the first time I saw you was on a challengers team, and you beat Jack Sock in Ohio.

ALEX MICHELSEN: Yeah, Cleveland challenger.

Q. I'm just curious, what you remember about that and how much that meant to you to get a win over a guy that had been really high up really early on?

ALEX MICHELSEN: He was former top 10. I was 18. I was super pumped to get that win. I remember he broke me early in the first, and I kind of got it back and won a breaker and then kind of ran away with it. I was playing super well.

He was obviously on the back end of his career, so he wasn't playing great. But just to get that win, that definitely gave me some confidence. I finaled my first challenger two weeks after that, and I think a big part of that was because of that win.