Benjamin Bonzi has a big opportunity on Wednesday evening in the second round of the US Open, where he will play Nick Kyrgios.
Like Kyrgios, Bonzi enjoys video games. ATPTour.com caught up with the Frenchman to discuss his favourite games, e-sports and basketball. It is safe to say Bonzi and Kyrgios will not agree on their favourite team!
Tell us about your love of video games. When did you start playing, and what are some of the earliest games you remember playing?
I started around maybe 10 or 11 when my parents bought me the Game Boy. I started with that. This is pretty old, but I remember this. I played a lot of Pokemon on this one, like every kid. I think Pikachu is the best. I liked it.
Now this is different. Now we have PlayStation. This is not the same games, but I used to play a lot.
Of course you played a lot of tennis as a kid, but was it nice to have other hobbies like playing video games to not only focus on tennis?
I think it’s important not to be focussed too much on tennis. We have a lot of hours on the tennis court. Then we have fitness and everything. We have maybe five, six, seven hours of focus on tennis every day and at a moment you have to disconnect from it, just try to relax, try to chill and there is music, video games, TV, whatever. But you have to disconnect from tennis.
What systems do you have now?
I do have one PlayStation and the Nintendo Switch as well to play Mario Kart. We played a lot of Mario Kart in Davis Cup in France, but I don’t travel every time with it. Maybe on long travel. I think this is better now with the quarantine. We have some countries where if you are positive you have to wait, so it helps.
Who is the best French tennis player at video games?
It depends on the game. Mario Kart, me for sure. No question, it’s me. [My favourite character] is Yoshi.
You’re used to long flights by now, but how much do video games help make the time go by?
With the Switch, you can take it on the flight and play Zelda or whatever you want. You have so many hours to spend on travel, so you have to find something to be patient and spend it.
Do you follow e-sports?
Actually I’m watching a lot of Twitch players, French players of course like in Warzone, Call of Duty. This is my main streaming on Twitch and I have some friends on the game now because I wrote them and they answered me.
What do you think about the rise of e-sports?
They are so good. You can play video games for fun. You can try to be good, but those…
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