I Hit With (& Interviewed) Ons Jabeur

hey everyone so I was in Paris one week before the French Open and it went from crazy to crazier I had some of the most surreal experiences that I've ever had on a tennis court I'm going to show you an opportunity that I had to not only interview but to get on court with a current top 10 player and former world number two and if you stay tuned till the end of the video I'll give you a quick tour of the aex House of tennis in Paris this is where the aex athletes pick up their footwear and clothing ready for the French Open let's get into it if you watch my videos chronologically you'll know that I casually hit with yanic sinner the day before this and this is what he said when I met him this is Ashley by the way yes I I saw you on YouTube I guess yeah he's more famous than I am which is why you should subscribe to the channel but today I was due to meet the aex team in central Paris Place the Republic to be precise where they had actually built a tennis court they set up a charity event called rally for the Mind where they invited members of the public and content creators to play tennis with some of asx's pro players players such as Harriet Dart emelo Nava Terrence atain Bor coric Diane parry and Alex deor were all playing in Aid of raising money for charity spent some time with Emilio Nava and Terren at Main doing some ball skills which these guys were great fun and even got to play some doubles points with mato bertini [Music] she's doing what she telling her to do your camera but surely after this was the big news aex announced a new partnership with an jabber who I actually had the chance to interview here it is so I can't quite believe that I'm saying this but I'm stood next to tennis icon on ja now on doesn't need any intro but she has just recently partnered with aex to join the family we'll talk about that a little bit later but I've got three just quick questions for you about your tennis um and as I see it and as lots of people see your tennis it's very much more than just how you perform on court it's it's a bigger picture so my first question is about your tennis yeah you're a player who has incredible hand skills and the ability to adapt and problem solve how did you develop those skills was it something in junior days um I think reflects a little bit my character I'm someone that doesn't like to repeat stuff and uh doesn't like routine a lot so I try to have fun and uh enjoy you know in general so I think it started when I was really young that my coach let let me do those things and uh just be myself on the court and I always believe that the tennis court is is uh is my freedom is where I can do anything I want it amazing answer and what you just said there about your coach letting you do those things I think sometimes coaches can be a little bit too um prescriptive and tell People Too Many Drop shots all this stuff and your coach was very open yeah the when I was young yeah some after I had some coaches they were saying like I I do too many Drop shots which uh I mean I fire them after well they're probably watching your tennis nowadays right yeah I just I feel like uh you know players are are creative and they they're very intuitive you should let them uh guide them but not really control what they they can do and it is very important to guide the player and and show them the right way with not changing their game but also um kind of improving the game more I see it that way so I'm a coach myself and um I try to preach to the players and the parents of the the kids that I coach that there's a lot more to tennis than just the structured stuff that you do with coaches and in matches did you spend a lot of time as a kid just messing around um yeah I always mess around if not on tennis court outside the tennis court I I always for some reason love a ball you know sport so either playing like football or or playing with the tennis ball played handball also so I really love to do a lot of things around and I feel like playing different sports really help to develop you know um uh some skills on the tennis court and that's maybe people say I have the touch but I think I really you you work on it you're not just born with it of course of course amazing answer so next question is more about your smile like you're smiling now off the court as well you make other people smile you've got lots of friends on the tour which is quite rare in this kind of brutal sport of one-on-one battles what's the secret um I don't I don't know I just feel like uh tennis is not the most important thing in life you know I uh I do believe that we are it's part of our life definitely but it's not our whole life and uh it's very important to enjoy every moment that we spend on and off the court uh we are all human beings and sometimes it's in this place we we do forget that we are just human beings you know we're fighting a lot we're very competitive and um it's nice you know to just have a smile and and jokes from time to time I I wish I can bring that you know more and more to the tour it's it's very nice to have have this competitive but also friendly fights and uh and you know just hope that the tour will will be a happy place I honestly think you've made an impact you know the people that are around you are having fun and laughing you know you can see it and that's only the small bits that I see on television I'm sure there's a lot more to it as well so um thank you for being so happy thank you and final question is with regards to your team so you've got such a a tight close team that you've had for many many years and that's another rare thing on the tour these days lots of players are changing around their coaching team what does it mean to you to have a really close team I think it's important to um I feel I see it as a marriage you know having a team around you you spend a lot of time together and uh and uh it's it's kind of very difficult to see each other you see them more than your parents you know so uh luckily my fitness coach is my husband which uh it's okay to see him 247 maybe not for him he wants to run away but me I'm I'm loving it uh but yeah I feel like we develop u a family you know connection and um it it is very important to have that uh my team I trust them 100% And I they know they will always protect me um and I know you know sometimes we go through difficult things but we manage to to find Solutions together and um that's what um needs to happen in every in every team you know I I truly believe in that H thank you so much for your time and your incredible answers and wishing you all the best for the yeah what group do you use love this is a group maybe three or four yeah what do you what do you use two oh two yeah hey for the hands yeah yeah I know on thank you thank you so much thank you I also had the chance to hit some balls with her this was so surreal as an has been my favorite WTA player for a while now and she was hitting me with her drop shot lob combos in front of a crowd in the picturesque setting of Paris loves to e big shes you [Music] know on was so nice as you could imagine until commentator Alise told her that I was a brick wall at that point she went straight for my face for the camera anyway after this incredible experience I got invited to the aex house of tennis with a bunch of coaches and content creators the main man you are the man you are the man man this house was set up for the aex athletes to visit before the tournament so that they could pick up their Footwear and their clothing and also get to spend some time with the aex team for me it was really great to catch up with old friends and others that I'd met virtually Howard green an Incredible strength and conditioning coach who runs the channel super movers Fabio from functional tennis D'Or from tennis house and French tennis Legend Laurent rette who you'll remember from my Mike toop match in Monte Carlo got to spend some time with all of these guys which was great we also had a tour of the house and had a sneak peek of some of asx's upcoming products before I got to chat with Peter the aex tennis product manager who tells us a little bit about their new new signing on jaur and gives us a teaser about some of the upcoming gear I was lucky enough to hit with on jaur yesterday um and have some time with her and she's an incredible athlete and an incredible person and my first question is how did the relationship start yeah so we have a we call that a sports marketing team that's a team that is responsible for uh managing our athletes but also finding future talent for example uh and they have ears and eyes everywhere for example so we know already from from like uh a couple years ago that on actually liked our product a lot and when she was younger she she played on on some of our shoes um so then I think this year she changed a contracts and she went for a new apparel sponsor and uh they don't have Footwear so that gives the opportunity some to some players to find footware that they would like Novak is a good example for that so on actually which is actually pretty cool uh started to buy some aex product uh and started wearing it and uh we in the beginning had nothing to do with it she she did that herself and then in the end uh we talked to her and said like wait um should we make this like official and uh should we uh join forces and uh that's great because then she can come to events like this and uh she gets our product but uh it starts basically with her wanting to wear AIC in this specific case and that is uh yeah pretty cool Incredible I mean that's the biggest compliment to the Footwear is a player actually going out of their way to to buy the shoe yeah yeah for sure and see with Taylor Fritz for example who switched now to Hugo buos and no food wear again and then through the connections that M gtin and Hugo buos had uh also uh he chooses to wear uh so that's things that are not on official contract but these are players that want to wear can you give us any teasers about any upcoming Innovations because I know that all of your shoes each time you bring a new one out the as's philosophy is to always make improvements yeah can you give any secrets away yeah so one of the favorite things in the Japanese culture is the principle of Kaizen which is a continuous Improvement always trying to make something better uh and that's basically my main job we're always trying so in the background and and I cannot say too much about it but in the background we're working on I think uh two new Concepts and we're kicking off the third one because it takes a long time so there's a bit of overlap on that but um I think we're close in finalizing one of our major franchises I'll give that as a a little teaser uh and in the I think next months we will have a nice update on one of our key models amazing well Peter thank you so much for your time always a pleasure and I'm sure we'll speak again soon yeah man can't wait amazing I've been to a few aex events now and I've absolutely loved working with the team I've had some incredible experiences you might remember before that I got to test out Novak jovic's morning routine and actually meet him I've also had the chance to hit some balls with Harriet Dart and even take her on in a blindfolded serve competition and got to interview top 10 player Alex De Manor I'll put links to all of those videos in the description below but just wanted to say a massive thanks to aex for all the opportunities you've given me and my channel so after another incredible trip with aex I headed off to my Airbnb to get some sleep ready for a day at the French Open and so stay tuned for my next video as I'm going to take you along with me to show you some of the Epic practices see you there