AUSTRALIAN OPEN

January 21, 2026

Hailey Baptiste

Press Conference

H. BAPTISTE/S. Hunter

6-2, 6-1

THE MODERATOR: Congratulations on a very impressive win today. How did you manage to dictate from the beginning to the end of the match?

HAILEY BAPTISTE: Yeah, I mean, my goal going into the match was just to be aggressive and play on my terms. I knew that obviously the crowd was going to be behind her, and so I was not worried about that. Once they got, you know, a little loud when she won points, I already knew that was going to happen.

Yeah, I just focused on myself and my game.

THE MODERATOR: Questions.

Q. Hailey, you've been having some pretty decent results in majors in the last year. Can you talk a little bit about sort of your progress on the bigger stages of the tour and kind of where you feel like your game is?

HAILEY BAPTISTE: Yeah, I feel like I've been able to just control my nerves a bit better the last year or so. Obviously having the results gives you the belief that you can continue to do it again and again.

I mean, obviously my goals change now. I've gotten to the second week of a slam, so now I'm trying to just push beyond that every time I get into these events. You know, try to go deeper and deeper each time.

Q. When people talk about you and your game they're, like, Oh, so much variety, like, it's getting Ons Jabeur, and getting really excited because you're playing differently. I'm curious, how did you develop that kind of game despite -- I'm sure the pressure, but nobody is playing like that. What was it like developing into your game to just be, okay, that this is going to be my brand of tennis, and I'm going to own it?

HAILEY BAPTISTE: Yeah, I think just growing up I played tennis, like, with a lot of guys, so I guess that's where the variety came from.

Tennis has always been somewhere where, like, I'm expressing myself, and so coaches sometimes don't agree with the way that I play, or my shot selection, but I kind of just have the mindset of doing what I want on the court, like hitting the shots that I want even if it's a crazy shot or it makes zero sense. Sometimes that's what I want to do, and I do it.

Q. Did you watch any of Madison Keys' opponent yesterday who had the moon balls?

HAILEY BAPTISTE: Yeah, I heard about it. I haven't seen. But I need to check it out a bit, but yeah.

Q. Do you wish more players would go a bit crazy like this and get out of the usual way to play?

HAILEY BAPTISTE: I think that it's difficult if you don't, you know, have a consistent way of playing. Obviously it kind of has to be the way that you've grown up playing. Otherwise, I don't think that people will be able to, you know, focus on what they're doing. Even for me sometimes I have difficulty deciding what I want to do in points.

But, yeah, I mean, it's obviously fun to watch when players have more variety and go for trick shots or, you know, crazy shots, whatever the case.

Q. Where were you and where did you train in the offseason?

HAILEY BAPTISTE: So I spent half my time in D.C. and half my time in Miami. D.C., I was at JTCC, and then Miami I was training with my coach, Eric Hechtman, at Royal Palm, yeah.

Q. How would you characterize the offseason and what you were focusing on?

HAILEY BAPTISTE: Yeah, just trying to get fitter and clean up whatever I needed to clean up, things that I didn't do as well throughout the year or that I could improve on, making my strengths stronger and trying to cut out some of the weaknesses that I have.

Q. What's an example?

HAILEY BAPTISTE: One goal is for me to try to get quicker. Just be a little bit more solid overall. Like, less unforced errors and try to make my serve more of a weapon. I mean, I this it's always been a weapon, but obviously try to develop it into even more of a weapon for myself.

Q. What do you do for your speed? Do you do track work?

HAILEY BAPTISTE: Track. Yeah, like drills on the court where I'm kind of just running full speed and just forcing myself to move as fast as possible, like whenever I'm on court.

It's more of a mindset sometimes with the speed work, but I think that just overall just trying to be quicker.

Q. This is a bit more of a sensitive subject, but back in the U.S. under the Trump Administration a lot of people are suffering, and I'm just wondering what are your thoughts on kind of the last year in the U.S. and how it feels to play under that flag right now?

HAILEY BAPTISTE: Yeah, I mean, obviously there's a lot of crazy things going on in the U.S., but it's out of my control. I mean, as a tennis player, I have really no power with that, but I'm hoping that things can be better within the next year, and we can just be peaceful with everybody.

Q. Does it make it any harder to spend time in the U.S. when you're there?

HAILEY BAPTISTE: I mean, in D.C. it's been, yeah, pretty insane just with all the officers and everybody out on the streets. It literally looks like a war zone. So I mean, that's just difficult to see and be around sometimes, but hopefully that's not something that lasts for long.

Q. Were you directly involved with any of the ICE people that were around?

HAILEY BAPTISTE: No, I haven't been involved with anything thankfully, but, I mean, I see it every day when I'm at home, so...

Q. You could be facing Coco in the next round. Just talk about that for a second.

HAILEY BAPTISTE: Yeah, I played her once before. We grew up together, so obviously she's at the top of the game right now. It's really exciting for me to be able to play somebody like that and take my shot and, you know, just play my game and go out there and try to win as I always do.