ROLAND GARROS

May 29, 2026

Alex De Minaur

Press Conference

J. MENSIK/A.de Minaur

0-6, 6-2, 6-2, 6-3

THE MODERATOR: First question for Alex.

Q. Bad luck. Could you run us through what happened then in your eyes?

ALEX de MINAUR: Yeah, look, pretty disappointing, missed opportunity. Just foot off the gas. I let him back into the match, and then just, you know, a little bit of what's been happening the last month. I just couldn't get out of the cycle.

Yeah, very unlike me, very disappointed in myself, because, I mean, under all kind of circumstances, this is the type of match that, you know, I need to find a way to win.

He's come from a physical battle. I'm fresh as they come. Yeah, I mean, it's just not good.

Q. Is the taking the foot off the gas, I guess you refer to the period at the start of the second? And is that a bit of a by-product, I know you had a week last week, but not having maybe as many matches given that difficult of a period?

ALEX de MINAUR: Yeah, I don't know. I really, I mean, the stuff that's kind of been happening last month is stuff that hasn't really happened to me in my career before either.

I'm just trying to find reasons and, yeah, solutions for it, but it's not problems that I have had before, right? In the contrary. You know, I've always felt like I'm that guy, you know, a dog with a bone. Just won't let go, won't stop until the very end.

Today I just, yeah, I don't really understand what happened, what I did, what changed. Just, you know, let him back in, and yeah.

Q. Does that make it even more disappointing, the fact you had never lost to him before, and as you were just saying, he had gone through that grueling match in the previous round?

ALEX de MINAUR: Yeah, I don't need more reasons to be disappointed in myself. I mean, right now I'm pretty gutted. Yeah, there is many reasons why I'm disappointed in myself and many reasons of which I feel like I should have been better today and should have found a way.

Yeah, it's not great.

Q. Obviously this time last year, after the Bublik thing, it was a similar, very hard time again. You regrouped and went on a good run after that. Presumably, that's what you have to do now.

ALEX de MINAUR: I mean, that's what I'm hoping for, right? I'm hoping to kind of bounce back, just brush it off again.

But I don't know. You know, I feel like you only get so many opportunities in, you know, your career, and you've got to be ready to take them, and when you don't take them, it's gut wrenching, right, and especially a day like today that I was in the driver's seat. Things were feeling well, I was hitting the ball well. Physically fine.

Just, yeah, I'm going to have to find a way to do as I did last year, but it's back-to-back years where I have kind of had a pretty disappointing, just like, stint here or tournament even here at a French Open.

So I guess the good thing is I've got the grass coming up, which is a part of the year which I always really enjoy. I'm hoping that I can kind of get back to where I should be and the type of player I should be whenever I step out on court. That's going to be the goal.

But, yeah, first I need to forget about today somehow.

Q. How do you sort of try to regroup? Do you take time off? What do you feel has worked for you in the past?

ALEX de MINAUR: Yeah, look, I don't know. I really don't know. I'm in a weird stage at the moment where I have put in a lot, and yeah, recently I haven't felt like I've gotten a lot back.

So trying to find that balance of whether, you know, it's again, you just put your head down, get back to work, and just, you know, there is no other way forward than to go through, right? That's kind of the mentality I have had my whole career, but I feel like it's been a long couple of years of that type of mentality. Maybe that's taking a little bit of a toll on me right now.

I don't know. I really don't know what the solution is, whether it's to go out and try to play matches and get confidence back and get wins under the belt and just go that way, or the opposite, just say, hey, let's forget about tennis for a little while, let's make sure I come back missing it and get back on the horse.

I don't know. I'll have to talk to the team and kind of decide in the coming days.

Q. Sinner yesterday going out, Djokovic has gone out now, but mentally, do you think people were thinking...

ALEX de MINAUR: Look, I'd like to think that it wouldn't have affected me, but maybe it did. Look, I really don't know right now. Obviously where I'm sitting right now, I feel like it's a wasted opportunity.

As I said, there's not many times you get these types of opportunities. Or even in my career, I feel like I haven't really been handed too many of these opportunities. Normally I'm at the tail end of tournaments, I'm playing these top players, and it kind of feels like the door has been kind of shut in front of me.

Once in a blue moon you get an opportunity like this, and you have to be able to take it, and I did exactly the opposite today.

Back to the drawing board. I need to be better. I need to deal with, you know, not just the match today but situations better and really need to kind of find that fire and hunger, you know, because I think it's been lacking a little bit.