C. RUUD/R. Opelka
6-4, 7-6
Team Europe - 1
Team World - 0
THE MODERATOR: Casper, great match out there. First on court. How does it feel to have that first win under your belt for Team Europe?
CASPER RUUD: Thank you. Yeah, it was a good start for Team Europe and myself, and happy to contribute a point to the team early and get us off to a good start.
I think historically it's been quite important to get the first point under our belt. Let's see if we can build from here. Jakub played a great first set and almost had him. Hopefully he can close out, and we have a first good day session.
THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.
Q. I don't suppose you can serve much better than that. You really had a pretty nice day from the service line. Just talk about how good you were feeling.
CASPER RUUD: Thank you. Yeah, it really got going, the serve. Reilly started great and really almost broke me in my first game, so I guess I just thought, I better serve well today, otherwise it might be tough. He has such a great serve. It is important to serve well yourself. You just try your best in return games.
You get a few chances here and there and try to take them. Luckily, you know, one break was enough, and one mini-break and a tiebreak.
So really happy with my own game and serve, and I stayed focused and really, yeah, determined throughout the whole match.
Q. He called you one of the best servers in the game. Do you think of yourself that way?
CASPER RUUD: I'm happy to hear that from him, but no. I told him at the net, This is not a normal serving day for me. I wish it was, but it's not. I have to be honest and say that.
Yeah, I don't think I've ever been over 80% first serves in and playing really well behind it. So really happy with it.
You know, I lost early at the US Open, so I had a few more days of practice at home than I would want, but you try to use them for something good, and I guess it paid off for the serve today.
Q. I think you said on court that Yannick was one of the chillest people or something like that. I was curious, what is it like being on the bench sitting next to him? Obviously he's got a sort of different approach to the game than people who are around it all the time these days.
CASPER RUUD: Yeah, it's really fun, but at the same time he's focused and wants us to perform and do well. I think the most important thing for him is that we have fun and try our best. More than that, you cannot really ask for and do.
Tactically, of course, you can always throw in a few things. Tim, besides me, and the other players also see different things on the side.
In a match like this there's not that much to say, other than just try your best in the returns and make him run as much as possible, of course, but he moves well. Like I said, he came off firing in the beginning, and he really challenged me in the beginning.
It caught me a little bit by surprise how well he played, but I managed to keep it together and hold my serve. From there from 1-All in the first, I think I was into it, and it was a really good match all around. Not too many errors out of my racquet, and for him as well. From the baseline he won some really great rallies.
Yannick, he kept me calm and said that the chances might come. They might not, but just do your best.
Q. Casper, coaching obviously has been allowed more up close and personal on tour. Here it's very up close and personal with voices around you. What do you think? Just trying to project forward as to what tennis looks like, continuing to innovate, continuing to get eyeballs. We've already got a great product, but to enhance it further. What do you like? Do you embrace the coaching from courtside? Do you like this even more up close and personal?
CASPER RUUD: Well, I mean, being a coach, it can be really tough, and sometimes I guess it can be quite easy if you have a good player who plays fantastic. I mean, you look like a great coach, but then when you play a match, it's limited to what a coach can actually do.
The real work with the coach and player happens on the practice court during the practice weeks, and maybe more so before a match where you prepare. Tactically you can only say so much. Yeah, sure, you can anticipate and say, Hit it to his forehand, close to the line, but the player has to actually physically do it.
Sure, there are certain things I guess as a player I don't like to hear from my father or from my other coach, Pedro, for example, that I've told them, and there are things that I like to hear. Everyone is different, and every player needs something different, so as a coach, you have to learn to know and trust your player.
That's where my dad and I work great. He's known me since I was, yeah, newborn and known my game since I started playing, and he knows me in and out. He gets the best out of me. That's what I feel, and he knows my weaknesses.
Of course, it's nice with some new eyes to my game with Tim and Yannick this week, but coaching is -- I think coaches don't get enough credit to what they do on the weekly and training kind of basis.
Q. Casper, you had the foresight to kind of buy into this tournament early in your career and see really maybe where it was going. Just talk about what the Laver Cup does so well and what it means to you.
CASPER RUUD: Yeah, it's a really cool and special event. As a golf fanatic myself, of course, I always watched the Ryder Cup, and there are some things resemble each other with the Laver Cup and Ryder Cup. It's been really fun.
I mean, even though I've played Laver Cups where we've been in a way favorites to win and we did, and we've been favored to win and lost, opposite. Every match is close.
Even when you look at this match that we're playing now, I mean, Jakub played a great first set, 6-1, but Alex is never really out of it. There's just set in the match tiebreak that can turn things around. I have felt like many matches get to a third-set tiebreak, and that's where the matches or ties are won or lost.
I think as a fan perspective, if I would go and watch a tennis event in the future after my career, I would definitely have Laver Cup as a priority if I could find time for it. You get great matches day and night. You see the passion in the players.
You are playing for something more than just yourself and beating the opponent, but you are playing for -- we're playing for whole continent, and the other guys are playing for the kind of pride of the rest of the world.
Q. Casper, sorry if this is repetitive, but with Yannick, many would say he's one of the great characters, persons of our game. Such a wonderful heart, perspective, and he's done what no Frenchman has done for decades and decades. But he doesn't come to a lot of big tournaments. I don't think he does all that much commentary. He is not really day by day with the game, but yet, he has this great record with teams. Can you go a little bit deeper on what is magical about him or what his secret sauce in terms of coaching?
CASPER RUUD: I didn't know him much before this. I met him a couple of times at Roland Garros. I don't know. It just seems like he has this kind of aura around him, which is a little bit hard to explain.
He brings something with him everywhere he goes, whether he's joking around and dancing and singing in the locker room or we're talking about tennis or talking about old matches of his. He really, really just spreads good energy and chemistry on the team.
He knows tennis. He's played. He's open to say that sometimes in practice, Wow, the game has really developed. I'm glad I'm not chip and charging against Carlos, because by the time I would be at the net, the ball would be past me already. So he's really open to the fact that the game has also changed.
I think it's fun for him to see how the game is these days. Yeah, it's been really fun, and he just -- yeah, like we said, none of the players knew him very well. I'm not sure if Tim knew him too well, but we all get along really well, and it's a good dynamic in the team.
Obviously Tim watches a lot and commentates a lot and is really involved in tennis, so you have the kind of open side of Yannick, while Tim is more the analytic and knows a little more about every player.
Q. Big question: Great job on the win today. Just wanted to know how the fog affected your match today?
CASPER RUUD: The fog?
Q. Yes, sir.
CASPER RUUD: I can't say that I felt any fog inside the stadium, but there's definitely fog in the city. We had a game of golf the other day, and you could barely see the ball leaving the club head. So I guess that's San Francisco for you, yeah.
Q. You told me a little bit in the tunnel about the golf game. Do you mind telling us who won that game?
CASPER RUUD: I don't mind, because I and Roger, we won. That's definitely easier to say that we win, so you can ask Carlos and Sascha next time they're in here and see how happy they are about that.
So we were one down early. Carlos made a birdie out of nowhere and sunk a chip from, like, 50 yards. Then, you know, Roger and I looked at each other and just went, You know, when you're good, you're good I guess, you can bring it anywhere.
We got one back, and then Roger clinched the match on the last hole. He made us win, so that was a really good moment.
Q. What course?
CASPER RUUD: We played the Olympic Club.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports