Clement Tabur candid after the knockout with Jannik Sinner: "For a few moments…"

French wild card Clement Tabur to L’Equipe commented on his Roland Garros first-round loss to world number one Jannik Sinner: “I didn’t want to have any regrets, I’m still happy. In fact I think I annoyed him for a few moments. To beat him I’m still a long way off, but I tried to build on my strengths, especially with the backhand.”

Tabur succumbed in 3 sets 6-1, 6-3, 6-4: after a difficult start to the match, he managed especially in the third partial to find a few points that fired up the crowd. “I tried to take time away from him, or at least to rival him a little bit. I could have done everything a little bit better, I never found an opening but I tried to match him for a while.”

“I had visualized this entry, this match, so much that in a way I was ready. It was crazy. It just makes you want to come back and relive those kinds of emotions. The schedule? Playing so late is not something we are used to. I practiced once this morning on the center, before the matches started. Then I went back to the hotel to rest. I wanted to take a nap but couldn’t sleep. I could feel the excitement growing as I went along and couldn’t wait to get on the court.”

“Since Thursday, I’ve had time to imagine some scenarios. There were very few, maybe one or two, where I was coming out on top! I think one out of two times he had to get injured…. I tried to go into the game conditioning myself to win. Simply telling myself “I have to give it my all” was not the right way to approach the game. Very quickly I realized it was going to be complicated….”.