ROLAND GARROS

May 23, 2026

Fiona Ferro

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Questions in French.

Q. Hi, Fiona. Can you share with us your thoughts with regards to how confident you are as part of the French Open following Rabat?

FIONA FERRO: I was able to play four matches, so I was very happy that I was able to play so many of them, and my game level increased game after game.

During the last match, I played 2-1 against a top-50 player, so it was a very positive week. Now I'm in great physical shape, and I've had a great journey in Rabat.

Q. For your first match it's going to be particularly hard, so how do you feel about it?

FIONA FERRO: I know her quite well, because I played with her in a 75,000 final in Switzerland in the past, and we've trained together many times in the south. So this is a player that I know rather well, shall we say. I know her strengths, and so does she with regards to me.

Technically she has a very accurate game. She's very smart. So I think she'll try to push me to those patterns that she particularly favors, and I'll try to do the same, and I'll try to impose my own pattern and my own game style.

But this will be a great match ahead. I know that I'll have to do particularly well, but I have all the weapons to do so and the physical shape to do so.

Q. You played against Madison Keys during the Clarins Trophy. Do you think you're in a better position now?

FIONA FERRO: Lately I haven't been so lucky with my draws, as you said. I played Cirstea during the first round in Rouen. Then Keys in Clarins during the first round. I played also Bouzas, seed 2, in Rabat. But as these games went by, I did lose, but I did play better over time.

Keys, the person that I played against, at the start of the game I was not so intense. I was down 5-2 very quickly, but this time around I'll have to be very intense from the outset.

So it was good to actually play these games to know what you can do and what you cannot do against these kinds of players.

Q. These past two seasons you've had injuries. You came back, and then you had to again stop. So not so easy to play in these conditions, but it seems that you're always able to go back to your base level. How do you manage this, particularly when it comes to your team? How do you always manage to find your way around, because there's so much stop and go?

FIONA FERRO: It's not so easy, as you said, but when you have an injury, you really want to come back, and you are determined to go back to the tournament.

During those periods of four or five months of time when I wasn't able to play and I was training quite intensely with cardio sessions on a bike, for example, and I would do visualization exercises for the French Open. So these training sessions are extremely important for your own strength.

That's always where I've wanted to be, and I always had the strong determination to come back.

Q. You probably have heard people say, When is Fiona Ferro going to come back? She's not here today, but Fiona is going to come back at some stage. Basically people tend to put you in that category.

FIONA FERRO: Well, I've also had the tendency to put myself in that category of players, but it's not that I don't have the kind of level of game in this sense, but I try not to compare myself to the old Fiona. I try to stay in the moment. I try to rebuild myself day after day, to have the right entourage.

I feel really well with the team around me right now. I don't have a feeling that I'm going to the war with just a stick, right? I have a great entourage backing me up, so that's a team that I would like to keep over time.

Day after day we've been building something. Since the start of the year, we've done better and better, and we'll try to go in the same direction ahead.

Q. Do you feel that your game has changed, you've changed your game over time? You've experienced various generations. Now that you are coming back yet again, do you feel you need to change anything yet again?

FIONA FERRO: I find that the number of solid players, solid women players, between the top 100 and 200 is quite higher today. You can really go very fast from 60th down to 120th without having any significant gap in your game level.

That's a major change that I've noticed lately.

Q. I don't remember all of the program. Do you know which day and on which court you are going to play?

FIONA FERRO: I'm going to play tomorrow third on the central court.

Q. Perfect. The central court is probably going to be in your favor against Andreeva, whom we had seen last year, against Lois, was perhaps a little heated when there is a hostile audience.

FIONA FERRO: I know that I'm going to need the audience to back me up. When you play in the French Open and you are French and you're not playing against a French person, that's something that can be helpful, and I'll try to use that.

With my coach, we'll see the tactical adjustments that are needed in this respect, and we'll see to that with the coach, but my vision is clear.

Q. You already have a great experience on the tour. How would you rate the French audience versus other audiences abroad? Because some foreign players are complaining about the French audience, that they're not so respectful. What about the French audience? Are they as crazy as the audiences in America, in Australia, for example?

FIONA FERRO: I've had a few lively matches, but never anything that was disrespectful in 2023. I had my quallies in 2023, and I was on the 14 court for almost every match. It was quite lively, but never disrespectful.

I have seen some matches where perhaps it was a little different, but I've never been confronted directly with these behaviors.

Q. Abroad have you had any challenging experience in this sense?

FIONA FERRO: No, never, not really.

Q. Tennis is an individual sport, but in the current group of women players, you are in between two generations of women players. You have the generation with Caroline and Alize that's already gone, and then Lois and Diane, who is still relatively young, and her generation that's coming up. What is your role in this current group of female players?

FIONA FERRO: Well, first of all, I'd like to really go back to the core. Some players I know really well. I've played with Diane various times as part of doubles. Whenever I can train, I do. Lois and Elsa, I do know them, but perhaps not so much personally.

So my objective, if I had not had that injury during the latest Fed Cup, I would have been a part of the group, so hopefully I'll be able to be a part of that group to get to know them better and to know how I position myself with them, because when you're not in the group, it's really hard for you to know where you stand in that sense.

Q. One key recommendation for Lois perhaps that you can share with her for this edition?

FIONA FERRO: I would imagine that Lois has been in contact with many people. I would say that people have high expectations towards her, but the only solution in these kinds of situations is not to project yourself too far ahead, to just take it one day at a time, one match at a time, and to rely on your team as much as possible.