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Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Roland Garros Second Round
By Roland Garros Official Site
R. FEDERER/A. Falla 6-1, 6-4, 6-3
An interview with: ROGER FEDERER
Q. Is it just one of those days you want to get through with the disruptions in the weather? ROGER
FEDERER: Yeah, I would think so. It's not easy, you know, to come on
and off. Conditions are really slow and wet and everything. Happy to be
through. Match was okay. Sort of played really well in the first set.
After that it was on and off. That was I think normal with the rain. Q. Is it harder to keep your concentration on a day like this? ROGER
FEDERER: Well, you're forced to. You know, especially I think toughest
is when you come back and have to serve. I think that happened twice to
me. You always hope that your game is still there, you know, it hasn't
left you. That was good today. Q. At any point do you think this game, that it was an easy match for you? ROGER
FEDERER: I thought I was always in control of the match. He maybe had
one little chance on breakpoint to come back in the second set, but
that was it. Otherwise, I always felt I was pretty much in control. I could play very freely, which was a nice feeling to have this time around. The first round was more difficult. Q. When you're not playing with Rafael Nadal or Nalbandian, do you feel the same pressure? ROGER FEDERER: No, it's very different because I know that he sometimes cannot play shots obviously that Nadal or Nalbandian would be able to hit, so it changes obviously the approach. I
mean, before a match, the feeling is the same. But when you play
rallies, you know the rallies are different. They're not maybe as
intense, maybe they're not as long. Also that, every opponent is
different. That is the difficulty of the game, you know,
because every time you play a guy who plays totally different tactics.
That makes it difficult. Q. When you were able to play today, how was your performance different from Sunday's? ROGER
FEDERER: You cannot compare. Conditions were different. The opponent
was so different again, a lefty, a righty. It was raining today, it was
incredibly windy the first day I played. I don't know, I'm just
pleased I'm through, you know, no matter how really. Happy I finished
the match today. That's what counts. Q. Is he as good a left‑hander as Tony Roche? ROGER FEDERER: (No response.) Q. You don't seem to get many lefties. ROGER FEDERER: It's nice once in a while to face a lefty, also maybe a different one than Nadal,
to see how other lefties play. Again, all the righties play different,
all the lefties play different. You could see it clearly. He plays much
more of a flat ball, plays a lot of cross‑court balls. Obviously, his
game is built up in a different way. He waits for the mistake, whereas
I think Rafa goes much more after the shots. Makes it totally different to play. Some is more difficult, some is more easy. Yeah, it was nice for a change to play a lefty. Q. What about the atmosphere when it's Kids Day? ROGER
FEDERER: It was great, great. They were screaming my name, looking
forward to see me play. I enjoy that because I've played many times on
Wednesdays in France. To see it also happening here at the French Open, it's nice. I really enjoyed it today actually, that all the kids were waiting every time we came back from the rain. Q. Besides the conditions, are you happy the way you played? ROGER
FEDERER: It's okay. I mean, obviously the first round was tough. I
thought my opponent did a good job by maybe making me not play so well.
But today I was happy the way I hit the ball. I was solid, consistent,
waited for the right shot to attack. Under the circumstances, it was a
good match. Q. Did you enjoy sleeping in your own bed the last couple nights? ROGER FEDERER: I wasn't home. Q. I was kidding. How was the wait, you talked about it on Sunday. How did you deal with the extra day off? ROGER
FEDERER: Maybe not so bad. Now that I won my second round, I'm in the
rhythm again. It was nice to get the first match out of the way, then
sort of look forward to the next one. I had one day extra, which is
sort of nice, too. I was not in a hurry at all. Yeah, I guess I just got to be able to switch now again to one day in between. I'm sure I'm ready for Friday. Q. Besides Davydenko, there are a lot of Russian men hovering in the top 50. Do you have any thoughts on their success, playing those guys? ROGER FEDERER: Yeah, I mean, there's been a few Russian guys coming up now too, especially Nikolay
making the move to the top 10 and staying there. I feel like they've
all got good baseline games, aggressive. I think that's definitely the
work of Kafelnikov, all these guys, and Safin, paying off now for these guys who got inspired by them. It's nice to have them on the women's side and now on the men's side. Q. Do you have any special motivation to win here, because you never won here, or any extra pressure about it? ROGER
FEDERER: Yeah, I would like to win here. Pressure is quite big, yes.
It's okay, you know. I enjoy the challenge basically (smiling). Q.
Could you talk a little bit more about the pressure you put on
yourself, your own expectations? Do you think sometimes you put too
much pressure on yourself? Do you sometimes try and lessen that or do
you like to put that pressure on yourself? ROGER FEDERER: No,
I don't feel like I put too much pressure on myself. Honestly, I can
only tell you after how much I really put on myself because you just
always think of the next match, you try to be in the best of shapes
(sic) that you can be. I guess, you know, at the Australian Open,
it all came out in the end, you know. But also throughout the
tournament, I felt like, you know, everything was relaxed and I was
feeling good. I didn't feel like I was putting that amount of pressure
on me. It only came out at the very end where I really saw and actually
thought that was a hell of an effort I had to go through, the last few
matches. Again, every tournament is different. I think the more
just think of winning, the more pressure builds up. I always try to
focus round by round. I guess that's the way to go. Q. That moment at the end of the Australian was incredible. Did that surprise you, your reaction? ROGER
FEDERER: Yeah, because I won, I was exhausted, I was tired. I sat on my
chair, I was feeling happy. I thought, that was kind of a nice victory,
you know. I got up on the podium and I lose my mind. Don't know what
happened. I thought that was actually already past the stage of
happiness. I thought the ceremony will be more of an enjoyment. It turn
out to be the grueling part, so... (Smiling). Q. You've had success in Hamburg
on the clay. Do you like the clay here the best of all that you play
on? What is better about the clay here that's better or different? ROGER FEDERER: I'm quite surprised how different the clay is all in all the tournaments. Monaco is so different to Rome, Rome to Hamburg, Hamburg
to here. It really doesn't make it very easy to prepare. Plus the balls
are different. The whole clay court season thru till you get here. I
find the adjustment is quite difficult to do actually, even though it's
the same surface. But I arrived here basically 10 days before the
tournament started. I was like, Wow, the clay is different again to Rome, and Rome is different to Monaco
I guess it's different people doing the courts make a big difference.
Then obviously the clay reacts differently to the weather. Where here I
haven't seen yet where it reacts to good weather, where Rome and Monaco I saw that. It's interesting to see when we all of a sudden have hot days to play here. Q. Do you have one you prefer? ROGER FEDERER: I'm actually happy I'm sort of all around, that I played well on the wet clay in Hamburg
before. Now in the past I've also played well on faster clay. That
obviously suits my game if it's a little quicker. I'm happy I actually
proved myself on all the clay courts. THE MODERATOR: Questions in French. Q. You said that you wanted to play in center court to get used to the dimensions. Were you sorry you were on Suzanne Lenglen today? ROGER
FEDERER: Well, I think it's quite normal. It's a tactic they have here.
I think for the people that buy tickets, it's important. I was last
year on Suzanne Lenglen, as well, once or twice. No, it's no disappointment. I find it very normal here. Q. The more you go in the tournament, are you losing your pressure on you or is it increasing? ROGER
FEDERER: It goes by stages. At the beginning you're quite relaxed. Once
you've passed the first or the second round, this is more or less where
I am now. I have to look into the next two rounds. Then the pressure
will increase again. But we haven't reached that stage yet. So
for the time being, it's sort of a relief. I have gone through the
first two rounds. It's going to be good. I'm going to play on Wednesday
the next time. It gives me time. Q. With the conditions today, don't you find this is more work than pleasure? ROGER
FEDERER: No, it was very pleasant. There was a huge crowd. Every time I
got back to the court, there was plenty of kids watching the matches.
They were very happy to see me play. That's value added in a way for
us. You always hope that you get back into the game each time,
which is not easy. You have to be focused in your match. You tend to
forget what is around you. But I did play well today, which really mattered for me. Q. Did you have the feeling that you were sort of a magician for the kids with fantastic shots? ROGER
FEDERER: Yeah, a few good shots, nothing magical about it. I think it
was very steady tennis, very solid tennis. I think they wanted to watch
it, so it was good for me. Q. When you were leading in the match today, did you think you could try new things or different things in your game? ROGER FEDERER: No, I wanted to finish as fast as possible. That was my main goal. Q. Sunday after this fairly difficult match, did you question yourself? Did you think it was past, behind you, you could go on? ROGER
FEDERER: I had the problem last time. There were two breaks against me.
It's just the opposite this time. Obviously after the first set I was
full of confidence and I knew that if I played well, nothing could
happen today. This is why I needed to be very focused. With the rain
and all that, it was not easy. But you can't compare the first match
with this one. The weather was different and the opponent was
different. It's much easier today, obviously. Q. Two days without playing, is it good for you or not? ROGER FEDERER: No. Now that I won the second round, I can say yes, it is, and I feel very relaxed about it.
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