Gilles Simon on Tennis, Coaching, and the Future of French Tennis

Although he retired a year and a half ago, Gilles Simon has remained close to tennis. First by obtaining his coaching diploma, then by combining his other passion, video games. After discovering the Twitch universe last year, the former French champion joined forces with a new event organized by the streamer Domingo and supported by the We Are Tennis by BNP Paribas platform and the FFT: the ” WildCard Battle. On June 6 at 8 p.m., on the Suzanne-Lenglen court, tennis fans will compete in front of nearly 6,000 spectators.

“When I quit the first year, I went to clubs a lot to promote my sport at all levels. In these types of events, we really meet people we would never have had at Roland. It was about bringing together two worlds that I like,” the former world number 6 explained to us. Then, he offered us his vision of the upcoming 2024 edition of Roland-Garros, which he will experience alongside Daniil Medvedev, his protégé for several months.

In your opinion, what can we expect from the French? Better compared to recent years?

Gilles Simon: In recent years, we have not had any seeded players. And there, we are going to have three, which potentially means more open tables. We also always have a good density of players, we have a lot of them in the table. As the Grand Slams are more open than before, for me there will always be a thrill. In every Major, we see a player crossing the table and he has never been French, but I don’t see why he wouldn’t be. It’s not like in our generation where you knew that in quarters, you took one of the four monsters. There are fewer walls in the painting. The average level of our players is improving, and I always expect a good surprise.

Even if on clay, it’s more complicated, right? Aside from Ugo Humbert’s quarter-final in Monte-Carlo…

GS: What is certain is that our two highest ranked players (Ugo Humbert and Adrian Mannarino, Editor’s note) are better on fast surfaces. For them, it’s much more interesting to be seeded at Wimbledon, because here they can be in danger against more players. “Manna”, we know his statistics on earth… Ugo, we know that he can play well on this surface but he will be more vulnerable. But if he plays well, he can be dangerous because he has already shown it. Then, there is Arthur (Son) who is more comfortable on land, who had not won much until now but who won a tournament (the Bordeaux Challenger, Editor’s note) at the very right time. These 5 victories are good for the confidence and make him a top seed, it’s very important. Others play quite well but will not be protected, you will have to look at the table, the luck factor increases considerably.

Son wants to be Top 10? It’s normal, you have to dream big

Precisely, Arthur Fils is a player who assumes his ambitions, he wants to be Top 10 and says so. In your book “This sport that drives you crazy”, you said that it was a problem in French tennis, do you see an evolution?

GS: I think it’s evolving because more and more people are saying that we haven’t won in a very long time and are starting to understand that what we were doing isn’t working. It’s not because I want to be Top 10 that I will be there tomorrow. I can have the goal of being Top 10 while knowing that I have a Top 50 level and that I am not there yet. It’s just normal. He’s 19, he’s going to be 20, he entered the Top 100 at 18 last year and he won his first ATP tournament. Obviously he wants to be Top 10 and that’s a minimum! And in my opinion, he says Top 10 because he always has this fear: “If I say number 2 or 1…” It’s normal. It would even be worrying if he said he wanted to stay there, it wouldn’t make any sense. Obviously he wants to be stronger. You have to be able to take it on, because if you don’t, it will be even harder to show on the pitch. This is the “easy” part, but it’s not that easy. At some point, you have to dream big.

Does the fact that Noah’s victory is so far away now allow young people to detach themselves from it?

GS: For sure. At a given moment, we are drawn into a certain discourse that comes back constantly and you continue to do the math. The first time I played Roland, people told me: “Ah, it’s been 20 years since a Frenchman won…” Well, now it’s 40. Time passes and shows the limits of reasoning. We may think that we are unlucky at the start, but at some point, if we don’t have players firmly established in the Top 10, it may not be a coincidence. It’s good to question it, because if we do the same thing, we end up in the same place.

Humbert came across a bone named Ruud: video highlights

Coming back to Roland-Garros, is this the most open tournament in years?

GS: We gave the cup to Rafa before the tournament! So it’s obviously more open. Novak was closing things down well too, otherwise. There are very good clay players who cannot be underestimated, especially in five-set formats, such as Casper Ruud and Tsitsipas. It is no coincidence that they found themselves in the final in Monte-Carlo. As soon as they set foot on that surface, they’re there. Over two sets, they can lose matches, but over five, they will be boring. It’s open but it depends for what. To achieve a result? To win the tournament? It’s more open than other years because the best arrive with more uncertainties. But it will remain dense, and some of the big seeds will be hard to get out of once they have won 3-4 matches.

Daniil will be dangerous and… vulnerable

What about Daniil Medvedev who you coach? Isn’t it better to arrive a little in the shadows for him?

GS: You never know what form the players are in and I won’t give any information, of course. Where are Sinner and Alcaraz for example? You, as sports commentators, make observations by watching matches. But there are a whole lot of things you don’t know. If it turns out, Sinner is in pain nowhere and he has been in total heat for ten days. If anything, he hurts everywhere but won’t show it. The context is super interesting and you don’t know it.

How Daniil got to Madrid, how he got to Rome and how he gets to Roland, we can never talk about. We have no interest in giving information and if we give you any, we will tell you that he is in good shape. It’s the game. And it’s up to the player to do their best to be ready. Each year it arrives in a different context. Last year, he won Rome, he made the first round at Roland. He lost a lot in the first round at Roland. The two years he was fourth and eighth, he hadn’t won in Rome before. There is not necessarily a link. Everyone knows that dirt is not his natural surface, but he has a high enough level to be hard to beat even on dirt. That’s why he won in Rome and why he beat Tsitsipas and Rune who are better players than him. If he is fit, he can beat them. That’s the only thing he really wants to know. He said to himself: “I’m going to prepare, I’m going to try to arrive as fit as possible. Yes, I’m more vulnerable than on other surfaces but I know that I’ve already won a Masters 1000 on dirt and we don’t win a Masters 1000 on earth by being completely useless.” That’s what Gaël said when he played it. He will be dangerous and… vulnerable. We will see what it gives.

Is men’s tennis in crisis before Roland-Garros?

Since you started training him, have things surprised you? How do you deal with the fact that he sometimes yells at you in the middle of a match?

GS: I didn’t discover it at the time. I know the character a little, I know how he works. We will work on this aspect or not, it is up to him to decide. It’s his way of venting his frustration. Others do otherwise. I try to stay with the general idea of ​​what’s behind it. We know that he’s not really attacking the person, but that’s how it comes out unfortunately, because that’s not the best way to come out. But if it’s the only one that works, for now let’s go like this. In my generation, Andy Murray insulted his clan all day long and, I think, deep down he wasn’t proud of it. But he said: “When I don’t say anything, I don’t win a match anymore.” And since he was there to win… that doesn’t reflect who he is at all on the outside, and neither does it for Daniil. I don’t take it personally at all.

When we played the tournament, we gave the cup to Rafa

This Roland will likely stage Rafael Nadal’s farewell. What does it mean to you?

GS: He’s a legend. When we played the tournament, we almost wanted to have a tournament between us, to give the cup to the winner, and after the winner, he gives it to Rafa! It was like this every year. It was complete and total domination, the greatest we have seen in our sport, finally on a surface. Ridiculous statistics at Roland (14 titles, 112 victories – 3 defeats, Editor’s note)… It is certainly one of the feats of tennis which has absolutely no chance of being beaten. Another player would have to win his first Roland at the age of 20 and repeat it continuously until he is 35 and that seems impossible to me.

GS: Nothing. I’m obviously going to watch his match because I’m a huge fan of tennis and of the player too. But I find that it’s a position that is not very pleasant for him. Above all, he does what he wants. He stops or not, he will make the decision he wants and I don’t judge anything. I went through this not very long ago, at my level. He will do his best, we know that and we can count on him for that. I only hope one thing is that he will be okay with his decision and we will see. If so, he will play very well or lose in the first round. I also hope he doesn’t get hurt.

Will Nadal participate in Roland-Garros? “The heart will speak”

How would you describe your relationship with him?

GS: He’s a player for whom I have a lot of respect, like many people. I think he also respects me for the matches we played where each time, I tried to be there, opposite. I never gave up despite many defeats. He was much stronger, he stopped me in many tournaments, too many! Especially when we were in good shape, that’s the problem. We shared the grounds for 20 years, but we were not at the same level. He made me laugh: once, I won Hamburg (in 2011, Editor’s note), he said to me: “Well done, you won Hamburg!” I answer him: “Well, well done for Roland, Wim, etc.” He had won 10! (Laughs.) He was like that, quite simple. You won a small tournament – ​​which was big for me, because big tournaments for me were very hard – he saw you at the next one and he congratulated you. He had won 3 Grand Slams in the year…

This gap between his exploits and his humility left an impression on you…

GS: He found the right balance between being humble on the one hand, and being very confident on the other. I think he has a lot of confidence in himself, more than you think. All the humble speeches he makes in relation to his adversaries bring him this balance. He said to himself: “I can lose this match but on the other hand, I have won 99% of my matches at Roland. So it can happen, but I am still favorite but I won’t tell you.” And for us, it was more: “Oh good? You’re not the favorite? So who is it? For us, it’s you.” (Laughs.) But I think he understood that it was important not to fall into arrogance, because naturally everyone told him that he was going to win. He was constantly questioning himself.

2024-05-22 21:41:00
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