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Wednesday, January 14, 2004
Commonwealth Bank International
Kooyong Quarterfinal
By CBI Official Site
R. FEDERER/T. Johannson 6-4, 6-7 (2/7), 6-3
ROGER FEDERER Transcript of press conference
Q: How did that feel first up? A: All right. I've played a couple of matches this year so it wasn't the first. I'm not concerned or anything but it wasn't great so I'm happy I've got a few more matches coming up and hopefully I can play better.
Q: Can you tell us what you did since the Masters? A: Went for holidays and came back and spent a month in Switzerland practicing and getting a lot of awards and busy.
Q: Given the year you had, when is the point that you stop reflecting back on what you've achieved and kind of soak up some of that and actually turn your mind to this year and what's ahead? A: For me as soon as you start preparing for the following year, I have to start forgetting what I achieved. Obviously it was awards and people still congratulating me for what I did, that reminds me and I think it's important to remember what you have achieved but for the motivation factor you've got to forget that and set yourself new goals otherwise tennis can be difficult.
Q: Did you have any experience of that late last year, when you say not being able to put it out of your mind and the difficulty that comes with having achieved that previously? A: You mean at the end of the year?
Q: Yes. You said tennis can be difficult. A: When you have no goals, that's what I mean. When you're just playing and you don't really know why, you have got to tell yourself: I want to achieve this, I want to in my position win events, I want to climb up the rankings, I want to get better in certain areas of the game, so that keeps me going because I've experienced a lot of ups and downs in my career also; not only ups, so it's really from the downs where you learn a lot.
Q: Do you think there's a chance you might even become a little more severe on yourself because of your situation of being on your own at the moment, might you be a little harder on yourself? A: Every year I set myself new goals off court also which concern practice sessions, be more professional off the court, and I always try to improve and try to be even more organised so with or without a coach that doesn't make a difference because I am trying to improve on certain things and that's not something to do with the coach.
Q: What kind of goal did you set for yourself off the court this year? A: That's private.
Q: On the court? A: On the court, yes, you can know that. First of all, it's a very interesting year with the Olympic year, I love the Olympics. The first time I went there in Sydney and I just missed out on the medal so I'm really looking forward to going back there and I'm playing well. Davis Cup is obviously for me also important - both concern my home town country. I guess I'm saying those two first because I got so many awards, I became Swiss Person of the Year and I have some responsibilities so I'm really proud. After that, I've got all the other events which really Grand Slams are the biggest ones so I really hope I can improve my results there to be even more consistent and hopefully I can get off to a really good start and can attack Number 1 ranking already here in Australia.
Q: Practically, how did you practice in Switzerland without a coach? Were you worried about that part? A: Max .... came and joined me in Switzerland he stayed with me for a week and there were all the other Swiss players practicing there so actually this preparation has been very good to me because they were really a lot of players because this tends to be a problem sometimes in Switzerland.
Q: Did you end up playing with Martina in Hong Kong? A: Navratilova?
Q: Yes. A: Yes.
Q: How did that go, how was that experience? A: That was nice. It was a really nice experience. When I heard I'm going to play doubles with her it was really special to me, just to share the court with her, and also spend some time off the court with her, even though it's not much, just to be able to talk to her a little bit it's nice because I really didn't know her before except from TV.
Q: How does it feel coming back to Melbourne Park after what happened in the Davis Cup? Is the memory still vivid? A: I don't really think too much, actually, about what happened or bad memories; I really only have good memories because it was my first time in a semis. I thought there was an unbelievable atmosphere on the Centre Court, Lleyton fought hard, I still felt like I had a great weekend of tennis and I'm really looking forward to the Australian Open and show again what I can do because I really enjoyed that weekend here in Melbourne.
Q: What part of your game will you work on for the rest of your week here at Kooyong? A: I've worked already quite a bit on some things before it started today because I had more time. Now that the tournament has started in Kooyong, it's just a little bit less you can do really because you don't want to overdo it and be tired for the Australian Open because that's the wrong approach but if there is something I didn't like today, I will go out this afternoon and work on it.
Q: You say you got very busy in Switzerland. Do you feel you have had enough rest for this season? A: I came back from holidays and right away I had to do a lot of things so started practicing again, go and do some stuff. Christmas was coming, I had another five day break which was very important for me and then I started to relax much more so luckily I only left on the 6th so really it was really busy in the beginning of December but then I realised that I had to slow down and after that it was good so I feel rested.
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