“You mentioned there about conditions effecting your game. Can you explain exactly for you what it means?”
Daniil: “I don’t want to find excuses. I know why I don’t really play my best at Roland Garros. But if I say it, it’s excuses… so I keep it to myself.”
“You’re so unpredictable that it’s really difficult for me to understand you. I saw you lose 6-0 6-0 to Berrettini. Then you almost beat Sinner in Rome. Then you come here, you win one set 6-1 and you lose the next one 6-1. You are a clever person but on court sometimes you’re crazy. What is your answer?”
Daniil: “Every tournament has a different court, different balls, different… what else? I can be different every day. I don’t like to stand up early and I’m usually less performative when I stand up at 6:15 in the morning. I like to sleep in. So this is just part of small, in general, let’s say in tennis you need to adapt to the things and sometimes I’m not good enough to adapt to it. And sometimes I am. That’s basically all I can tell you.”
“You’re intelligent…”
Daniil: “Yeah, but my tennis depends on a couple of things that I cannot control. If the ball doesn’t go, I don’t have the power to make it go. Like, Jannik, it doesn’t matter. The ball doesn’t go, he hits it full power. The ball goes, he just makes a bit adjustment and doesn’t go full power. I go full power and if the ball doesn’t go, it doesn’t go. So yeah.” (via Roland Garros Press)