Albot: 'When You Have A Daughter Like This, Winning Or Losing Doesn't Matter'
Radu Albot’s life is about far more than tennis. These days, it is focussed on his daughter, three-year-old Adeline.
A prime example of that came at Wimbledon. After Albot won a match in qualifying, young Adeline ran onto the court to congratulate her father.
“They asked me, How does it feel winning and I was holding her in my hands during the interview,” Albot recalled. “I said when you have a daughter like this, winning or losing doesn't matter. So at the end of the day, I guess even when you lose, and you're playing with your kid, it just puts your mood up and you forget about everything.”
Albot won his first ATP Tour title at Delray Beach in 2019 and later that year climbed to a career-high No. 39 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings. But his most impactful moment in recent years came when Adeline was born.
“It changed me of course. So much more responsibility. When you're home, there [are many] more things to do and it's around her,” Albot said. “The world is around her now. So in the morning, I was waking up before and I was doing my stuff. Now, first thing I do, I go to wake her up when I'm home. I go put the clothes on, my wife is preparing breakfast, we eat and we go to the kindergarten.
“Before I could do whatever I wanted. Now, I need to go to the kindergarten every time [at] eight o'clock in the morning. Everything is around her. [Around this] I need to plan the day, what I do, how I practise. And then I need to pick her up around five from kindergarten, so that's the new stuff. And of course, in the evening you need to pay attention. She wants to play with you, especially when I'm travelling a lot and I'm coming back she always [says] to me ‘Daddy, I miss you.’”
When Albot, who is competing this week at the Mubadala Citi DC Open, speaks with his daughter on the phone, she often asks why he left for work. “It’s a little bit sentimental of course,” he said.
Last year, Adeline and Albot’s wife, Doina, joined him during this North American swing. This year, they spent more time with him in Europe.
“It's not so easy to take her so often from kindergarten, because she's also missing her friends. She is also there with their activities,” Albot said. “There is a group chat from the kindergarten and they're sending all the time pictures [of] what they're doing. They go fishing, they go to some theatres with the kids. They go in the forest to see some bugs, they go in the forest to see some some flowers and different grass.
“She [also] needs to develop herself. She doesn't need to travel all the time with me because she's developing with kids of the same age. And she likes it in the kindergarten.”
Regardless if Adeline is with him on the road or back at kindergarten, Albot carries Adeline with him in his heart. That matters more to him than results.
“Of course you want to win all the matches,” Albot said. “But if you have your family and everybody is healthy and everything is good around [you], it doesn't really matter so much.”