© C. Dubreuil

" Physically not ready "
29/04/2006

Amélie comments on France’s Fed Cup defeat against Italy last week-end.

- Amélie, how does one feel after such a week-end ?
You will not be surprised if I tell you that I am of course very disappointed. Now, we have to try and understand what happened this week-end and avoid making the same mistakes. Maybe we lacked a little vista from time to time. We had opportunities. I think that we both had opportunities during our two matches. Maybe we just didn’t know how to make the most of them ; it’s as simple as that. That’s the way it is ; it happens sometimes. Maybe the physical parameter played an important role. I personally am in my preparation phase and therefore my physical condition must inrease gradually so at to be at its peak for Roland-Garros. And I might have been a little short in that area today. That’s it. It is a defeat that is hard to accept, but we don’t really have the choice. There have been several times in our history as a team that we were a little lucky and we won matches away from home. This time we lost at home ; it is difficult, but we have to accept it and continue to look ahead into the future.

- Francesca Schiavone played a great match against you. Maybe we didn’t expect her to play at that level ?
Oh yes ; I’ve seen her play for several years now and I really think that these past few months she has acquired a new dimension in her game. First of all in her attack – we knew she had a solid baseline game but today we saw her move forward and come win the points at the net. I’ve seen her do that for the past several months so I was not that surprised.

- Do you regret the choice of the surface ?
There are several parameters in the choice of this surface. The timing is an obvious one as we should not forget that we are in full preparation of Roland Garros. Then there was the moment when we chose that surface as Mary (Pierce) was not injured at the time. Having played the final at Roland Garros last year, she really feels at ease on clay. Therefore, we thought it was a logical choice. On top of that we had seen Pennetta play better on hardcourt and Schiavone plays well on both. So we chose clay. Maybe we got trapped but at the time of the decision, I really think i twas the best choice.

- What lessons do you take away from this tie, on a personal level, in the perspective of your preparation for Roland Garros ?
There are quite a few. And in any case, I have to be positive. That’s what I will do, I really don’t have an issue about that. I’m sure that, once I have digested the lessons of this defeat…hop…I’ll put it behind me and will continue going forward. On the physical level first of all : I have to be more solid at certain moments of the game because it is a surface that is completely different from what we experience throughout the season. There are a couple of things that need to be changed during the preparation phase. Then, I think I had some opportunities especially going forward to win the match, attacking at the net… I didn’t have that vision…I didn’t do that. That is also a lesson to learn for the future.

- Do you have any regrets aboout this defeat against Schiavone ? You did have a match point...
Yes, I was very very close. Even though I think that at match point she did serve well and then scored the point. But no, no regrets. If I manage to change all this and apply it during this clay season, there will be no regrets. Just lessons learnt.

- You have played three consecutive Fed Cup finals. This time you will have to play a play-off tie. In what state of mind will you be going into this next tie ?
Right now we are still in shock, kind of groggy from this loss. Then, once we have digested it and we know our opponent and the venue, we will be able to concentrate on the tie and prepare for it. I want to be optimistic about all this. Because I remember some Davis Cup stories that started off from play-offs and ended up in the best of ways the following year. We can always console ourselves by thinking that. We simply need to play oour best and ensure we stay in this World group.