Benoit Paire has vowed to stop partying and drinking alcohol as he shared his hopes to return to the top of the game. The Frenchman confessed to playing tournaments purely to win money as he felt he had thrown his career away over the last two years after feeling like tennis was a “punishment”.
Paire has often been a dividing figure on the ATP Tour, finding himself banned from representing France at last year’s Tokyo Olympics for his outburst and has been accused of deliberately tanking matches multiple times, most recently against Cameron Norrie at the US Open. But the 33-year-old has now made an honest admission as he bids to turn his career around after “throwing it overboard”.
“It’s been a long time since I felt the competitive fire that I felt today, that I didn’t really want to win a match,” the former world No 18 said after his opening-round win at the Brest Challenger. “For two years I haven’t had such a good attitude on a tennis court. I know I still have a lot to improve in terms of confidence and level of play, but now I think I can get back to my best level.”
Now sitting down at No 177 in the world, Paire vowed to turn things around after beating Duje Ajdukovic 7-6 6-3. He continued: “I’ve thrown it overboard two years of my sports career and I assume that to recover them, I need to change many things and add many wins like this one.”
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A three-time title winner, Paire said money had been his motivator over the last two years as tennis became something of a “chore”, but the Frenchman was ready to give up partying and focus on getting the most out of the last few years of his career. “I’m going to take it game by game. I used to come to tournaments to win money and see what would happen, but now I see each event as a little step up,” he explained.
“I’ve trained hard on a physical level, I’ve done very demanding tests and my legs are back. function at full capacity. I feel that now is the time. I know that I have been trying before, but not with this conviction because I did not have the mind in the necessary disposition to compete. Tennis had become an obligation, almost a punishment. I know it’s difficult for people to understand, because we are privileged to dedicate ourselves to this, but that’s how I felt.”
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With the 33-year-old now set to face fifth seed Jelle Sels in Brest, he admitted it was daunting to begin trying again but was ready to take on the pressure. Paire said: “I have refocused on the important things. I decided to be more professional, not to go out to night parties and stop drinking alcohol.
“I want to do my best and that sometimes makes me anxious, because I know that right now it is impossible. The French public has a lot of expectations around me and that generates extra pressure on me, but I think that little by little I will be able to respond to that.”