It is often said that on the court, you should not think too much. For a long time, Quentin Halys was unable to keep his mouth shut from the inside. Too many emotions, not enough clarity about the path to follow. Ups, downs, and often frustration and mistakes that outweigh everything else. Particularly in the fifth sets, which he had lost all in his life, until Thursday. On the small court No. 15 at Wimbledon, he traced his path straight ahead, hanging on when Karen Khachanov, from the top of her world ranking of 22, dominated him in the exchange.
Trailing two sets to one, the 27-year-old from the Paris region did not deviate, hitting 71 winning shots in total, including 24 aces, thus putting into practice the words exchanged at length with his coach Olivier Malcor, ahead of the Roehampton qualifications, the launch pad towards Wimbledon that the player who fell back to 220th place in the world had to take at the end of June, a little over a year after being on the edge of the top 50 (61st).
“The game becomes easier to experience from the inside.”
However, at the Challenger tournament in Lyon, three weeks ago, Halys injured his right knee and retired in the quarter-finals against his compatriot Kyrian Jacquet. “The pressure cooker had exploded,” summarizes Malcor, who has been working with him again for two months, after following him within the FFT five years ago. “We arrived in London four days before the start of the qualifiers, and we talked for hours. We started big discussions, to reconnect two things: his game plan and his state of mind, because he told me that, ultimately, he had never found peace on a court. » The exchange mixed with introspection bore fruit and Halys seems to be on track, with his coach’s words in the background: “Quentin, you serve like a bear, but you’re never at the net and you wait for your opponent to make a mistake too often, all because you’re not bad at manipulating the ball, but there are too many guys who are stronger than you in this. You need to be much more aggressive.” On Thursday, he chained 60 serve-and-volleys, for 48 points won!
Already in the third round of Wimbledon just a year ago (he led a set to nothing against Jannik Sinner before losing in four sets), Halys is back. With 150 places less in the ATP ranking, certainly, “but I feel like I’m a better tennis player, which the match against Khachanov proves to me again. I work hard, but probably a little fairer, and more on the long term, at the moment. And since on the court I totally validate my choices and my risk-taking, I assume my mistakes, so the match becomes easier to live from the inside.”
He expects no less from the next match, Saturday, against the Dane Holger Rune, seeded number 15: “Without disrespecting him, I don’t put him much higher than Khachanov, they are a bit of the same caliber. I will approach this match to win it. It will be cool.”
2024-07-05 05:34:00
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