Richard Gasquet hasn’t ruled out a return to Roland Garros next year as his career draws closer to its finale.
The 37 year-old has had an epic 20 year career which continues to grow with Gasquet winning a match at Roland Garros this year, defeating Borna Coric.
However Gasquet’s Roland Garros campaign did end on Wednesday night as he lost in straight sets to Australian Open champion Jannik Sinner.
Speaking to French journalists after the match Gasquet commented on the match and admitted the match brought good emotions out of him, “It was a great emotion. There were a lot of people,” Gasquet stated in his post-match press conference.
“It’s great playing in the evening. There were a lot of people. And it’s the first time that I have been on the court in the evening. It’s very pleasant to play there. But the game was very fast on both sides. The balls were quite heavy in the evening. It’s less easy than in the day to spin the ball. It’s quite complicated. I didn’t serve very well, but of course he was better.”
This year’s Roland Garros was a landmark event for Gasquet as he won his first match at a Grand Slam since the US Open in 2022.
Gasquet spoke about how good it was to win a match at Grand Slam level and playing a player of Sinner’s quality but acknowledged he would like to do better against the best players in the world, “I haven’t won a Grand Slam match in quite a long time, and in Australia, too, so it’s good to be able to win this match and to play on the central court, on Chatrier,” the Frenchman stated.
“He is No. 2 in the world, so it is great. I hope that I can carry on playing a little bit longer at this level. But it’s true that, yeah, there are quite a few good things in this Roland Garros, but you always want to take a set, have a better service, do better from time to time, but generally speaking, he’s just a better player.”
Now Gasquet looks to the future as he has already proven once in his career that he can grind on the Challenger tour and increase his ranking.
The Frenchman is currently at 124 in the world and looks to boost his ranking over the next year.
When asked if Gasquet will be returning to Roland Garros, the Frenchman said that he’s taking it one match at a time and he does not know if he is approaching the end of his career, “I have no answer to that really. It’s month by month. It’s very hard to say or to know when you have to stop, so I don’t really know,” Gasquet stated.
“I’m just going to try and see, to try and climb up the ranking, in the first 100 at least, and I don’t know if it will be this year or next year. I have no idea. But of course more time goes by, and the closer it gets. But, you know, I can’t answer. It’s good to win a match here. It’s good for what’s to come next.
“But then you don’t know how you’re going to play, whether you might be injured. Everything is possible. So I’m going to try to carry on playing, though.
“Well, I try and push myself and push the boundaries. Quite a lot of physical training, as well, and try to be consistent and be very serious above everything on the outside. Yes, I’ve held out so far and I’m going to carry on in the same way and we’ll see how far it takes me.
“It’s fabulous to be playing on these two courts, Suzanne Lenglen and the central court. With the audience there it’s fabulous, so we’re going to try and continue. You don’t know what comes next, whether it’s in Bercy or next year here or before. It’s very difficult to know myself.
“When you lose two or three matches you say that you’re going to be stopping one week later and then you win a match, and, well, you want to continue a little bit. Then if I lose three times on grass, you never know. No, but I feel good. I feel good. But I’m not 25 years old anymore. But I don’t feel that bad.”
Gasquet will now head to the grass court season and will aim to improve his ranking by the time he return to Paris at the end of the year for the Masters 1000 event.
