In 2021, Tennis Acumen interviewed Australian Aleks Vukic at the Champaign Challenger tournament. Here is a part of that conversation:
Tennis Acumen: There's a spectrum. You see guys that just absolutely love to win and guys that hate to lose. There's a different set of motivations here.
Aleks Vukic: I think my feeling of losing is definitely stronger than my feeling of winning. I get more affected by a loss than I do a win. But I love to win, but I get hurt more when I lose, and I'm happier when I win, if that makes sense.
Tennis Acumen: It's very hard to understand that, because there are 32 guys in the draw here, 31 of them are going to lose by the end of the week. And no one likes to lose. How do you rebound from that?
Aleks Vukic: Oh, it's nonstop. I think I'm getting better at that, but it's one of those. You got to have a short-term memory when it comes to that and learn from it, but then just focus on the next week. That's the best thing about tennis. There is a tournament next week, and you can do great things there. So, it's just forgetting about it and just keep going with a long-term vision of where you see yourself going.
Tennis Acumen: I'll tell you a story. The Challenger in Savannah a couple of years ago, Reilly Opelka, who was just up and coming. No one had ever heard of him. He comes off court. He's just suffered a loss, sits down next to me and he's just shaking. He's so upset. He can't stand it. And I said: ”Reilly, if you don't play guys that can beat you, you'll never get any better.” And I could just see a weight come off his shoulders. I don't think he's hated losing as much since then.
Aleks Vukic: Yeah, yeah, definitely short-term memory. And then move on.
More of this exclusive interview is available at Tennis Acumen. Go to the interviews category, shown on the upper right hand side of the screen.
Tags: aleks.vukic, Vuki_SMASH23
Comments