QATAR TOTAL ENERGIES OPEN

February 8, 2026

Jasmine Paolini

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Jasmine, if you want to give your initial thoughts on being back here in Doha.

JASMINE PAOLINI: Yes, for the moment feeling good. I came here a few days ago to try to adapt as much as possible. The courts are pretty different, the conditions as well, from Australia. Hopefully, I'm going to adapt as best as possible.

THE MODERATOR: Questions?

Q. You had a couple weeks off from Australian Open to now. What did you focus on tactically in that gap that you've had to prepare for Doha?

JASMINE PAOLINI: I think it's important here to try to play deep on the court, because the ball, it's heavy, it's like getting bigger every game you play. It's tough to find the power sometimes. We're trying to adapt to that.

Of course, it's a bit different from Australia, that's for sure. But we're trying to find our best solution to play here. Fingers crossed for the matches, because you never know.

Q. When you come into these tournaments, do you set expectations for yourself by looking at the draw, or do you like to take things match by match and tournament by tournament?

JASMINE PAOLINI: Actually, I'm not looking at the draw, I'm just looking at the next opponent. So that's how I'm thinking, one match at a time. If I win the first one, then we can see the second opponent, but that's my mindset.

Q. You've come close to a Grand Slam, reaching the final twice. What do you think you need to do to overcome that? Is there anything specific that you feel you need to work on to kind of become a Grand Slam champion in singles?

JASMINE PAOLINI: I think at the moment I have to work to play a bit better in the slams, because since Roland Garros last year I didn't make the second week. I have to be more consistent there. I have to find a way to play better. Because, at the moment, in Australia I didn't play bad, but I had some problems. Jovic played so good. I'm missing chances, and I have to play better to have a chance to go deep in the tournament at the moment, to go to the second week, actually.

Q. Also, the Australian Open tournament director spoke about having possibly best-of-five matches at the 2027 edition. Your thoughts on that? Are you in favor of that?

JASMINE PAOLINI: At the moment I don't think it's a good idea. Honestly, to me, maybe it's better to reduce the sets of the men maybe until the quarterfinals. I'm not sure. I think also some good matches are of course in the best-of-five, but it's a tough tournament. We could see also in the men that the Australian Open was tough for them. Maybe from the quarterfinals on would be a nice idea.

But to the woman, I don't think it's a good idea, honestly, to me. I mean, we are built different physically. So if the men had a tricky tournament physically, for us we are different physically, so it's going to be, I mean, it's tougher. It's not a lie. We're just built different.

Q. More of a fun question. If you could choose any female tennis player from the history of tennis that you could play today, who would it be? Let's maybe remove Serena Williams from the mix.

JASMINE PAOLINI: Okay. Maybe Sharapova.

Q. Why?

JASMINE PAOLINI: Because I grew up watching Sharapova, watching Serena, of course. So maybe Sharapova, yes.

Q. Currently in your home country the winter Olympics are ongoing. I know you got to be a torch bearer in the build-up to it. What was that experience like, and then what winter Olympic sport would you want to do if you could?

JASMINE PAOLINI: Me? (Laughing). I always say I want to try to ski, but I never done this before. I'm going to wait until my retirement to try that (laughing), not before, because it's too dangerous.

But, yeah, to carry the Olympic flame was a privilege, and I felt really honored to be part of the journey. But, yeah, I wish all the organization, the athletes in Italy good luck for these Olympic games. It's always good to have them at home, and I think it's a really good thing for our country.