Reduced from a beautiful run in Washington, which was interrupted only in the final by Sebastian Korda, Flavio Cobolli made a splash on his debut at the Masters 1000 in Montreal by defeating local top-20 player Felix Auger-Aliassime with a resounding 6-3, 6-2. Thanks to this success, the young Roman took another step towards entering the top thirty players in the world rankings, moving virtually into 29th place. A goal that is already prestigious in itself, but Flavio has even higher aspirations.
Cobolli: “I want to get used to these stages. Djokovic is my reference”
“It was a perfect performance, I’m very happy with what I did”. It was very difficult to play so well after such an important week as the one I just had, but I managed to maintain the right mentality throughout the match. I don’t want to stop here, I’m ready to hit the court again”
, Cobolli stated while discussing his victory over Auger-Aliassime.
Flavio then described last week as “one of the best” of his life, but—as mentioned earlier—he has no intention of resting on his laurels: “I want to get used to these stages and these beautiful moments”, because I’m not there yet.”
In the meantime, however, the Italian has already shown character by not being influenced by the crowd all rooting for Aliassime. “Environments like this motivate me to beat my opponent”. It’s more of a challenge that I set for myself when I step on the court: the more the crowd is against me, the more I want to beat my opponent. Not because it bothers me, mind you: the crowds are very fair, it was really nice to play on Centre Court, one of the most beautiful stadiums I’ve ever played in. But when I hear the crowd against me, I like to try to put everyone in as much difficulty as possible”
In short, Cobolli has chosen an approach very similar to that of Novak Djokovic. And in fact, he stated that he draws inspiration from the Serbian: “I have always had Nole as my role model, I try to imitate him in that as well”. It’s not just about the shots, I like how he is off the court, his mentality. I try to take examples from these little things too, from what he says in press conferences. Since he said that thing, I repeat it to myself a lot and I must say it works.”
he touched on the near future and ranking prospects: “The main goal of the year, after the good results I had achieved, was to finish among the top 32 in the world to be seeded in the Slams. I don’t know if I will already be able to be so in New York, I hope so but I don’t want to dwell too much on the ranking. It’s something that motivates me, yes, but I just want to continue enjoying myself and doing what I’m doing”