AUSTRALIAN OPEN

January 22, 2026

Valentin Vacherot

Press Conference

V. VACHEROT/R. Hijikata

6-1, 6-3, 4-6, 6-2

THE MODERATOR: Congratulations, Valentin. Take us through what you think was working for you today on court.

VALENTIN VACHEROT: I mean, I tried to do the same as always, put my physical conditions, my fitness, on every ball. Try to be as physical as possible, try to serve my best.

That's what work for, let's say, two sets and a half. Then I played one or two bad games at the end of the third set. Rinky, he got the crowd with him and everything, and I just stepped down a little.

I'm really happy the reaction I had the first two, three games of the fourth, to not have give him much hope in the fourth.

THE MODERATOR: Questions in English.

Q. I saw that you're the first player from Monaco to make the third round of a Grand Slam. I just wondered what does that mean to you?

VALENTIN VACHEROT: It's great. I'm trying to be the first for everything these days, but no, it's great. I have a lot of pride behind me, the country. I know a lot of people follow me back home. A lot of people stayed awake, so I'm really glad about that. Happy to have won for them.

Yeah, I don't really look at all this, but of course, back of my head, it's a little pride, yeah.

Q. How important is it for you after the amazing run you had in Shanghai to prove that that wasn't a one-off?

VALENTIN VACHEROT: I mean, yeah, I'm sure so many people thought it was just the one week. Then even though I did well after in Paris as well, it was probably just about my confidence of the moment, so I'm just happy to win as many matches as I can. If some people were wondering if I had the level, maybe they have more answers, but me, I don't look much at social media and everything.

So I don't read about that. I don't know if there's some story going around. I just play tennis and try to play as good this season and every tournament. We'll see. We do the counts at the end.

Q. Just given the great end that you had last year, Shanghai but also backing it up in Paris, the offseason came when you found your groove. How important was it for you to start this year sort of on a roll and keep it going even though you had that break in the middle?

VALENTIN VACHEROT: Yeah, it was important. That's why I played both tournaments also before in Brisbane and Adelaide, to try to get as many matches straightaway, because at the end of the day, the break was two month, so two month without matches, it's never really happened for me before.

I played some decent matches. I think what is good is that I played really good guys straightaway. I play Sebastian Korda in Brisbane, Kecmanovic in Adelaide, Alejandro Davidovich. It's all guys that have been in the top 50 for a while.

I had to put my level up straightaway and had a win, had some losses, but it wasn't bad matches at all. Now it's good because I have three matches in my back to come here and try to play as good as possible.

Q. Just on your next match, do you know who it is? Do you want to know?

VALENTIN VACHEROT: I think it's Ben or -- did Ben win?

Q. Yeah.

VALENTIN VACHEROT: So yeah, yeah.

Q. Just on Ben, obviously you've both played college tennis. It could be quite a loud vibe. Are you excited for that? Are you ready?

VALENTIN VACHEROT: Yeah, yeah, I'm excited. I'm really happy to play him, because he played two years college, and we had his first year in common, so he was really young. He was 17 or 18 years old, but he was already pretty impressive with his serve and everything.

No, of course happy to play him for the first time. As I said, if I play him, it's allowing myself to play some top-10 guys and see how I can do.