{"id":19718,"date":"2024-06-19T08:35:05","date_gmt":"2024-06-19T00:35:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/?p=19718"},"modified":"2024-06-19T08:43:11","modified_gmt":"2024-06-19T00:43:11","slug":"ebdens-comfort-on-grass-i-feel-like-ive-just-gone-into-my-living-room","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/news\/2024\/06\/19\/ebdens-comfort-on-grass-i-feel-like-ive-just-gone-into-my-living-room","title":{"rendered":"Ebden’s Comfort on Grass: “I Feel Like I’ve Just Gone Into My Living Room”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back on one of his favourite surfaces, Matt Ebden begins his build-up to Wimbledon wanting to capitalise on his impressive momentum on the doubles court.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Fresh off a semifinal at Roland Garros, Matt Ebden is gearing up for another tilt at Wimbledon when he kicks off his grass-court campaign this week at Queen\u2019s Club.<\/p>\n

The doubles world No.1 teams with Rohan Bopanna as the top-seeded duo, opening against a pair of qualifiers in the first round.<\/p>\n

The rapid switch between surfaces at opposite ends of the spectrum \u2013 gritty, slow clay to slick, quick grass \u2013 is perhaps one of the most extreme adjustments required in professional sport.<\/p>\n

But for Ebden, it\u2019s no problem.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, not so much, because growing up and playing a lot of my junior tennis in Perth, I played a lot of club and league tennis on grass,\u201d he said this week on\u00a0The Sit-Down<\/em>\u00a0podcast.<\/p>\n

LISTEN: The Sit-Down with Matt Ebden<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cSo I step on a grass court and I feel like I\u2019ve just gone into my living room at home. It feels that comfortable, I feel so natural.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me (the transition challenge) is probably the opposite; when you finish Miami on the hard courts and then you go onto the clay that first week, just doing that training going onto the clay \u2013 all those specific movement and drill patterns for the body, adapting that way \u2013 is probably the biggest one for me.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut going back onto the grass is really natural and it\u2019s always a fun, exciting time for me. So I love it.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Wimbledon doubles champion in 2022 with fellow Aussie Max Purcell, Ebden this year is enjoying a fruitful partnership with Bopanna and together they are prioritising the biggest events.<\/p>\n

They have already won the Australian Open and Miami Masters titles, and built a 20-7 win-loss record after advancing to the last four in Paris.<\/p>\n

A three-set loss to Simone Bolelli and Andrea Vavassori \u2013 their opponents in the AO 2024 final \u2013 in the Roland Garros semifinals still allowed Ebden to\u00a0reclaim the No.1 doubles ranking<\/a>, but left the 36-year-old with mixed feelings.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo go pretty deep (in Paris) was nice, we played well, I was sort of happy with getting through there, but then on the flip side, to lose the semi and feel like you were actually so close and really could have been one set away from the final and one match away from winning it, was then really bittersweet actually,\u201d he admitted.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a hard few days to digest that, as much as I was happy being in that position as well. It\u2019s sort of the good and bad thing about tennis; anytime you get a really good result, you\u2019re sort of happy with it, but then at the same time you\u2019re like, \u2018oh, it\u2019s a missed opportunity\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cI obviously want to try and capitalise and try and win all these Slams now, now\u2019s the time. We\u2019re not getting any younger, no time like the present.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re at the peak, at the top of our games. So it\u2019s the time for that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back on one of his favourite surfaces, Matt Ebden begins his build-up to Wimbledon wanting to capitalise on his impressive momentum on the doubles court. Fresh off a semifinal at Roland Garros, Matt Ebden is gearing up for another tilt at Wimbledon when he kicks off his grass-court campaign this week at Queen\u2019s Club. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6414,"featured_media":19719,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6414"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19718\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}