2009 U.S. Open Interview Room Quotes - Week One
Selected interview quotes from the players’ post-match press conferences at the 2009 U.S. Open…
Describing what she’s surprised about with her comeback so far…
KIM CLIJSTERS: I think the focus, and mentally wise you know, I know physically and tennis wise I've done everything possible to get back into shape. So I knew that in my practice I've worked really hard to get there. I know when I am out there, whether it's 5 All in the third or something, that's not going to be an issue.
But what I think where I was the most surprised is how comfortable I felt out there from the beginning.
Commenting on the night sessions at the U.S. Open…
ANDY RODDICK: You know what, it's all part of our game. We don't play on the same surface. We don't use the same balls. We don't play in the same place. It's all different all the time. The thing that makes Wimbledon so cool is the tradition and the whites. I get into that when I'm there. I love it. I think it's great. I think the equivalent of that here is the night sessions and the craziness, the fact that it's a show and it's an event as well as a tennis tournament. The more things that we have that make our events unique, I think the better our sport is for it.
Describing what a young Roger Federer would think of Roger Federer now with all of his success and fame…
ROGER FEDERER: Yeah, I mean, I think I've come a long way. I didn't ever expect to be this successful. I knew I had something special in me, more talent that other players. Maybe the belief, you know, that I could play at a very high level on any given day. But I knew I had many problems of showing that day in and day out, because I struggled a lot in practice. So I think where I've come, it's absolutely amazing. Yeah, I mean, if my career to end today, you know, I'm a happy man. I achieved everything I could ever ask for, really.
Asked whether he watched tennis on TV while he was off the Tour with his knee injury…
RAFAEL NADAL: No, I watch the final of Wimbledon. I watch a little bit of final of Roland Garros and saw the Davis Cup of Spain in Germany. That's it. That's it. I watch a lot of sport, but I watch the Tour of France. (laughter.) But tennis, I watch a little bit of Wimbledon. That was the final. I watch few games, you know, normal, but not a lot.
Commenting after her first round loss…
ANA IVANOVIC: Well, I think I've been thinking about everything too much and trying to address lots of issues with my game, and at the moment I feel like I have a plan in place and I know what I have to do in each area of my game. But just at the moment I think it's a little disbalanced. My fitness is at one level, mind at another, my game is at another level. I think these all these things have to marry to get into the right direction and have to fit.
Describing herself as a young girl training in Florida…
MARIA SHARAPOVA: … The amazing thing when I look back to being that young is I really didn't care who anybody was. I don't know. I certainly didn't watch a lot of TV. I actually didn't watch much tennis on TV. That's why when people ask me who was my hero growing up, I never really had one. I don't know why. I don't know if it was because I didn't get to watch so much on TV. But I remember many big names coming to the academy and practicing. I wasn't overwhelmed by them. I admired them. I always wanted to watch them practice. But I wasn't sitting there with my mouth open and saying, Oh, my goodness, I want to be that person one day. From this day on, when people tell me, like a girl or little boy comes up to me, say, We're so inspired by you, I want to be just like you. I always say, No, you want to be better than I am. You always want to be better. By no means am I perfect. I think that's from when I was very young, I never thought anybody was perfect. I admired Hingis' quickness and the way she thought on the court, but I certainly didn't think she was perfect at everything. So I don't know.
After her first round win, describing how her shoulder feels…
MARIA SHARAPOVA: I mean, I'm certainly still making adjustments. You know, I'm still -- usually, you know, after a tournament like Toronto, I'd probably get back on the horse after just one day off. It takes me a little bit longer for my arm to recover after such a long week, which I'm usually not used to. Especially my arms, when I would play really long matches, that was the last thing that would either bother me or get sore. So that's kind of a little bit of a new stage for me, kind of dealing with that, and really being smart on the practice court, as well. Obviously, you have a week to train before a Grand Slam, but you want to do the right thing. You want to ‑‑ I still have to work on my strength and do my program every single day of last week, but also I want to go out on the court and hit tennis balls. It's a compromise. It's something that's definitely new in my career, but that's okay.
Explaining why she switched to an abbreviated service motion…
MARIA SHARAPOVA: I'm just trying to do something that's easier on my arm. I'm pretty mobile. My joints are pretty loose. You know, by the time I would ‑‑ I had a pretty loose motion. By the time I would get to the hitting position, as I was explaining, my rotator cuff would be out of place because I'm so mobile. With a shorter motion, it doesn't have so much room to move around. It's a little bit more stable in its socket. It's a little more technical.
Commenting on adding Todd Martin to his coaching team…
NOVAK DJOKOVIC: Yes, I can confirm now that we started cooperating and working. The last couple weeks we have been negotiating and trying to work things out. Definitely we started working Monday after Cincinnati. We spend the whole week together away from the site at one place in New Jersey. We had a lot of hours on the court daily, and of course fitness with my coach, really trying hard to work on some things to improve the game and get ready for the most important tournament in this period of the year. So Todd, being a top five player, playing a couple finals of the Grand Slams, and, of course, many other tournaments, and he's very respected in the tennis world, and he's a person that can help me a lot in any way, his experience. And he brought freshness to our team, which is always welcome. I just really look forward to it. So far the things have been functioning quite well for all of us.
Describing what will be the biggest factor in her decision at the end of the season about whether she will retire…
AMÉLIE MAURESMO: The will deep inside to really have the energy and to go out there every day, and to work and being able to try to stay at the best level that I can be, being still able to be happy about doing this and having this still deep inside of me. It was hard after Wimbledon, and I found myself a little bit better last week playing some good matches and really finding the movement was good, and physically I was feeling good as well. So it gave me a little bit of extra will, I would say.
Commenting after his second round win whether he feels pressure to do well at the U.S. Open this year…
JAMES BLAKE: I try not to think about the whole year in general that way, that one tournament is going to change it. Obviously, a great result could do that. I just think there's going to be some bad luck in my career. There's going to be some injuries. There's going to be some times you're not playing your best. I don't worry too much about the ranking. As soon as I knew I was out for four or five weeks, I made a decision to stop looking at the rankings. I know I'm going to drop. I learned a long time ago when I was thinking about rankings is when I was playing too tentative. I was worried that this guy is ranked 60, this guy is ranked 70, I should beat him. I'm not sure what Ollie is ranked. I think I heard at the beginning he was ranked 90 in the world. He played better than a guy ranked 90 in the world. I don't worry too much about those, where my ranking is going to finish at the end of the year. If I'm playing well, I can go into any tournament and play with the best players in the world. It's always nice to be seeded high. You're not going to get you're guaranteed you're not going to get a terrible draw right away. Other than that, it doesn't make a whole lot of difference to me.
Describing her attitude…
MELANIE OUDIN: … I don't listen to what other people say about me, like good or bad things. I just go out there and play my game. When I play with no fear, that's when I play my best. I don't worry about anything. I just play my game, and it usually works.
Responding after her second round win whether she feels like an unseeded player or a contender…
KIM CLIJSTERS: To be honest, I don't really think like that. Even when I was seeded, I remember in the past, the favorites, there was a lot of talk like that. But, you know, I think every girl who's out there, whether it's Serena or Safina or myself or whoever, we know we have to win those matches if you want to get there. I think, you know, you don't really focus especially at the start of the tournament, you don't focus on eventually winning the tournament. But I'm just going to go out there. My next match is against Kirsten Flipkens, which is going to be tough. That's all I'm going to focus on right now. I don't want to think too far ahead.
TAYLOR DENT: Yeah. When I kind of bit the bullet and decided to go with the fusion surgery. I didn't do it to play tennis. The doctors told me that I would not be playing tennis if I did that surgery. So at that stage, it was just kind of like, Okay, well, these are the cards I'm dealt. Let's not mope and whine about it. I have to have this surgery to lead an active lifestyle. No problem. First one didn't go well. Second one ended up going well. The doctors said, It healed up very well. You should try to hit some balls. I got too excited. I definitely got too excited. My eyes lit up. I got out on the court later that day. That was probably the toughest moment for me, just to see how far I had lost, how much I'd lost. I sat down after two minutes of hitting, and I'm just like, phew. That's kind of when I had the talk with myself, Do I even want to do this? I have lost everything. I'm getting winded after 30 seconds of hitting balls up and down the court. I'm hitting the ball terrible. I have no confidence. I haven't even hit serves yet, which is the biggest part of my game. So that's when I just said, Look, you can't be selfish and you can't be naive about this tournament. You have to play professional sports again. Nobody gets this opportunity. A select few get this opportunity. You would be an idiot to push it back.
Talking about his goals now and whether getting back into the Top Ten is one of them…
LLEYTON HEWITT: Absolutely. It's an aim, but then again, for me, it's you know, still going out there in the Grand Slams is what I want to play well at. It would be nice to get into the top 10 and have to come up against these guys later in the second week. Hopefully that's going to pan out for next year. This year has sort of been more of a rebuilding year, I guess, trying to get the matches and get the match toughness under my belt. First four or five months is always going to be tough after the surgery. You're never going to expect miracles straightaway. I've been able to battle through. I've laid it all on the line, especially the last two majors, and played extremely well. It's taken a couple of the best players in the world to beat me.
Commenting after his loss to 6’9’’ John Isner…
ANDY RODDICK: Yeah. I mean, there's a lot that's out of your hands with the way he plays. I said it before, you can't really teach 6'9", especially coming down on a serve. You try to fight it off as much as you can. Sometimes you can, and sometimes it's completely out of your hands. Like the majority of matches that we play, it's not really so much about if you execute, you're gonna win. Sometimes you can play bad and win a match like that. Sometimes you can feel like you're hitting the ball well, and that's when you don't want to see a guy like that floating in the draw. Yeah, it doesn't really allow you to kind of get into as many tennis points, I guess.
Describing how he played, especially in the tie-breakers, to beat Andy Roddick…
JOHN ISNER: Yeah, that's kind of my game. Hit big serves, get into the net, hit my forehand heavy, dictate play with that. I know he does that really well also. But it's my strength, as well. Maybe I was a little bit fortunate to win tonight. But I played well and I think I deserve it.
Commenting after her loss to Melanie Oudin…
MARIA SHARAPOVA: I thought she played really well. I thought she has many weapons. You know, she certainly held her ground. I mean, you know, I still feel like I had my chances, even though it wasn't my best day. You know, when you let those chances go, it's just frustrating. But, I mean, got to hand it to her. She really stuck to her game plan. She played solid. She made me hit a lot of balls. She moved really well around the court, yeah.
Commenting after beating Maria Sharapova…
MELANIE OUDIN: I learned, once again, proved to myself that I can compete with these top girls. And if I believe in myself and my game, then I can beat them.
Describing her competitive spirit…
MELANIE OUDIN: I've always been so competitive, doesn't matter what I'm doing. Whether I'm playing tennis, playing cards, playing some kind of like board game, I always want to win more than anything. I'm not going to give up, you know, no matter what the score is. I'm down 6 0, 5 0, you know, I'm not going to give up. I'm going to keep fighting.
Describing how she’s handled playing top players on the big stages such as Arthur Ashe Stadium…
MELANIE OUDIN: It's tough. But I try to pretend that it's not like Arthur Ashe Stadium playing Maria Sharapova. I try to just pretend it's any other match, even just practicing. Sometimes I tell myself I'm just practicing at my academy at home and I'm just playing one of my friends. So it's not a big deal. So I don't think about the whole occasion (smiling).
Describing her biggest weapon…
MELANIE OUDIN: I think the biggest weapon can be mental toughness. It doesn't have to be a stroke or a shot or anything like that. If you're mentally tough out there, then you can beat anyone. I think that's what I really did well today and I've done in my past matches. I'm so focused and I fight super hard. So it's not going to be easy to beat me or I'm not going to back down at all.
Commenting on his strong serve return after beating Taylor Dent…
ANDY MURRAY: Well, yeah, it's nice. I mean, something that I practice a lot. I think it's I view the returns being as important as the serves, so I practice it loads and have Miles serve at me from just behind the service line. So I'm used to returning hard serves. You know, obviously returned well today, and always liked it when guys come forward against me and serve and volley.
Describing why she retired two years ago…
KIM CLIJSTERS: I think it was a combination both of physically and mentally that was kind of just a little bit tired of it. I had other things in my mind that I wanted to achieve as a woman and as a person. That made me not be so disciplined anymore in my tennis career.
When you don't do everything for your tennis, especially with the tennis that I play, I think I've always been told, I've always known that I have to work a lot on everything that goes around, that's outside the tennis, the practices and everything, working on my shoulder, back, knees, hips, everything. That was something that I kind of just pushed aside just towards the end because, yeah, I was just tired of mentally tired of going through that for so many years. You know, that's when you need to make a choice. You know, yeah, so I'm glad I made that choice 'cause a lot of beautiful things came out of it.
Commenting on her desire to win…
KIM CLIJSTERS: Uhm, I don't think it's that much different. You know, in the past I wanted to win a lot. Sometimes maybe too much even. Maybe now, you know, I know that everything that I'm doing for my tennis is with full focus and I'm taking my time to work on the weaknesses that I still have to work on and everything. But I think a part of that there's also that other life that I have that keeps me away from tennis; whereas in the past, it was 24/7 tennis. It's nice now to have that change. When I go home after I've been training here during a day off, it doesn't matter to our daughter or my husband whether I won the day before or not. It doesn't matter to them. That's a nice feeling to have, is knowing, Okay, I'm mommy, and she doesn't care too much about anything else.
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