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Tuesday, August 5, 2003
Montreal TMS First Round
By Tennis Masters Canada Official Site
An interview with: ROGER FEDERER
R. FEDERER/G. Gaudio 6-4, 3-6, 7-5
Tour Official: Any questions in English?
Reporter: Roger, do you feel at 2-4, triple break down there, that you would have made an early exit from this tournament
if you went two breaks down?
Roger
Federer: That was basically match point, obviously. You
know, you never know. Maybe I would have come back. But
already at that point I was looking bad, just being down a break,
because he was playing well. I thought he was really serving
well. He was not giving me too many second serves. When he
was, he wasn't double faulting, either. So he didn't give me a
lot of points on his serve. I just had to hang in there.
You know, the crowd got a little involved and they pushed me to try
harder, even harder than I did. I would like to thank them, too.
Reporter: Did you try anything differently at that point, or was it just more of the same, but do it better?
Roger
Federer: Yes, I was just trying to get back into the match and
just get a chance maybe to break him and hope for some errors from his
side and maybe win the first few points on the service game to put him
under pressure and then at love -- 15-40 I was back in the match.
It's true at love-40 and at 4-2, the match was slipping away so I got
lucky today.
Reporter: Did you let your guard down after you won the first set maybe a little bit?
Roger Federer: What do you mean?
Reporter: Because he came back in that second set.
Roger
Federer: You know, it can happen. The way he won the second
set, that's the thing I'm not happy about. It can happen that a
guy breaks you and he's back in the match. But the second break,
that's what really made me unhappy.
Reporter: Do you have any thoughts about your next opponent, Rusedski?
Roger
Federer: Yeah, we played a few times. I don't know who's
got the better record, we're kind of even, I think. I don't
really know how well he's playing because of his injury. But I've
been following him. He played well in the leading up tournament
to Wimbledon, so he must be playing okay, but we'll see. It will
be a totally different game, probably played on a few shots, so maybe I
prefer that.
Reporter: What are his strong points in playing?
Roger
Federer: His serve and he volleys well. So I've just got to
pick maybe more sides on the -- on my return. But especially just
focus, first of all, on my own service game, not that I get behind.
Reporter: How did you find the court today?
Roger
Federer: It's all right. It is quite slow if you play guys
like him, who like to rally. So always depends, really, on your
opponent. But if you're not serving well, you have a tough time
to win your serve.
Reporter: Have you been dreading a little bit playing your first match after Wimbledon, I mean, after Gstaad?
Roger
Federer: It depends. It's different. North America is
further away from home for us Europeans. Anyway, it is good to
get the first win in, especially the way it went today, a good fight
and played a lot today. So I just think it kind of can get better
from here. I usually always pick up my game second, third round
so I hope I can do the same here.
Reporter: How’s Juliette?
Roger Federer: Juliette’s fine.
Reporter: Was the humidity a factor for you today?
Roger
Federer: It is different. I have been practicing a few days
here and it only was humid one day, I think, the Saturday or the
Sunday. So it's different when you're out there and it's just
different. So I definitely felt the heat, you know, a little bit
even though it was not so extreme today. But I think it was good
to have a day like this.
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