|
Saturday, 8 July, 2006
Wimbledon Pre-Final
By ASAP Sports
An interview with: ROGER FEDERER
THE MODERATOR: Roger Federer.
Q. There's a lot on the table tomorrow, obviously. What's foremost in your mind as far as what's at stake tomorrow? ROGER
FEDERER: Uhm, a Wimbledon title, one more for me. Looking forward that
I've created myself another opportunity to win here in Wimbledon. You
know, never really reached a finals of any Grand Slam as easy as this
Wimbledon, so I hope I can finish it off in style. Q. Why has it been so easy then? ROGER
FEDERER: Why? I guess I played very well, that's one thing. I was
always pretty much in control of my matches from the start on. No, I
think I took this tournament extremely serious from the beginning on. I
had no choice with the draw and everything. So I'm very pleased that I
came through so convincingly. Q. Nadal's record against yours is very good. Does he get in your face? This mighty muscles bit, does he intimidate you? ROGER
FEDERER: No. I see 10% of what he does, I turn around so quickly. So
it's an advantage for me because I don't get to see all the things. I
mean, I don't think he acts bad or anything. He just pumps himself up.
That's legal, no? And, no, I mean, we've had some good matches in the
past him winning obviously more than me. It's gonna be an interesting
match on grass obviously tomorrow. Q. When you're the No. 1
player in the world does it irk or annoy you that you have one player
that has such a dominant record against you? ROGER FEDERER: I
wish it was different, but again, when I came on tour, I also had bad
records against some players. Over the last few years, I've been
actually almost putting all the negative records into positive ones.
Now I have one that happens to be negative again, and it's against the
No. 2 player in the world. I'd rather have that than against the number
50th player in the world. It's kind of better this way. Q. Does the way he slows the game down make it difficult for you? He takes a long time between points. ROGER FEDERER: I mean, it's not because of that I lose, I don't think. Q. Does it make him difficult to play against, though? ROGER FEDERER: No. Q. What aspect of your game, your consistency, your creativity, your power, gives you the most pleasure yourself? ROGER FEDERER: You have to repeat yourself, I'm sorry. Q. Which aspect of your game, your consistency, creativity, or your power gives you the most pleasure? ROGER
FEDERER: Uhm, I enjoy, obviously, the all around style, you know. Once
come to the net, once stay back, once serve well, once move well, once
play good defensive shot. I like, you know, obviously the change. I
like everything. That includes part of everything you just said. Q.
Throughout the world history of tennis there's been some great battles
between extraordinary players like Borg, McEnroe, Lendl, Edberg,
Becker, so on. It seems like you and Rafael Nadal will be the next
couple that are there. What do you say about it? Do you think about it? ROGER
FEDERER: Absolutely, we've been more or less one year now, we met in
tournaments playing each other on a few big occasions, you know. Yeah,
we won so many titles last year and again this year. Didn't look very
good this year for him early on with the injury, obviously. So I was
happy really to see him coming back, you know, because it's always
disappointing when you have one of your main rivals sitting on the
sideline watching you from home with an injury. I saw how it
felt during in October, November, when I tore my ligament, you know,
watching him win Madrid and watch Berdych win Paris and watching
especially somebody else winning Basel. It's not great fun if you think
maybe you could be there yourself and competing for the title. No,
I mean, I definitely think we've been, you know, playing for the No. 1
spot for the last year. Before, it was me and Lleyton or me and Andy,
me and Marat, maybe me and Andre also at one stage. I'm happy I went
through all those different players. This time around it's Rafa and
it's great we play back to back in Grand Slam finals. I think it's very
exciting for the sport. Q. With his record against you, do you
go into this match as confident as you do other matches? Obviously,
he's got the upper hand on you when you played seven times. ROGER
FEDERER: It's obviously different going into a match like this when you
know it's on Centre Court in Wimbledon. That changes obviously very
much. It's different than going into, you know, the French Open final,
because there it's on clay, it's his favorite surface. This is my
favorite surface. That obviously changes a little bit. But,
uhm, obviously, I mean, I don't have many bad records against players,
so this is one. Maybe you enter the match a little differently, I don't
know. But I don't think I have been affected by him beating me because
I know it's been very close all the time. When I played him, I didn't
feel like I played bad, you know. I think that, for me, is very
important to know heading into a final. Q. You're so
experienced on Centre Court in this kind of a final condition, do you
think that will give you the upper hand, the pressure aspect? ROGER
FEDERER: Don't know. I think he's handled the pressure extremely well
over the years even though he's been you know, he's very young. He
defended his French Open title. That shows how strong he is. He's
never been in the Wimbledon final, and I don't know how much it really
means to him, you know, if it means more than the French Open. I don't
know. But I've been in this position, and maybe I can draw some
experience out of it. Q. When you first began playing on
grass, do you remember what was the most difficult aspect of the
surface or your game to make work well? ROGER FEDERER: Well,
you know, you have bad bounces on clay and you have bad bounces on
grass, but it's a different type of bad bounce because you have more
time on the clay still to adjust, where on grass you sort of shoot
through, you know. I think that's what you have to adapt to. And
then I think most importantly is the footwork because you got to go
from we come always from clay, you know, you slide and hit, and here
you do little steps and you hit. That is constantly. I think that's the
biggest change you have to do for grass. Q. Has there been a time in this fortnight where you thought someone's given you a good game? On paper, it looks easy for you. ROGER
FEDERER: I actually thought, you know, a few guys played pretty good
against me, you know. I was just really playing very well, you know,
didn't allow them to actually be, you know, leading the score. I mean,
Bjorkman told me yesterday he felt all right. Ancic, I thought he
played pretty good, you know. Mahut, I thought he served incredibly
well. I had some players I thought played pretty good against me. Q. Which one was most difficult? ROGER
FEDERER: Until now? Well, I think I don't know. I mean, I was worried
before many matches this year. I guess the most difficult one might
have been Ancic, looking back, I think. Q. You said
yesterday you went out with Peter Lundgren, your former coach, and
said, Be gentle with me. Dare we say you actually had a drink or two,
your clean living image? ROGER FEDERER: Well, you never went out or...? Q. You said, Be gentle with me, in your quotes yesterday. You went out and played a game. ROGER FEDERER: I told Peter, yeah. Q. You said you didn't get in until, what, four o'clock in the morning? ROGER FEDERER: I didn't say when I came home. I said I came home late and I had to wake up early. Q.
Which aspect of him, Nadal game on grass, surprise you the most? Is the
serve, is the movement he has now compared to last year? ROGER
FEDERER: Uhm, you know, I mean at the beginning of the tournament I
said who were my favorites, you know, next to me. Was Roddick and
Hewitt, I thought. I said that very clearly, and because Nadal hasn't
had the opportunity to prove himself yet. But Nadal has been
playing very well on hard court. Some people forget that, especially
the media, I think. They totally underestimated him here. He's won
Madrid, which is fast. He won Dubai, which is fast. He beat me there.
For me, it's not a surprise to see him here in the final. He's been
able to adapt to different surfaces pretty well over the last year.
He's obviously going to improve, he's still very young. For
this reason, you know, I'm not surprised with any, his movement or his
returning or his serving, I knew he could do all that. Q. He didn't lose any serve the last four matches. ROGER FEDERER: He didn't lose his serve? I mean, he should have been broken several times. Q.
Do you think the competition in men's tennis on grass is slightly lower
than it used to be in the mid '90s or do you think it's improved? ROGER
FEDERER: Uhm, hard to say. I think back then you had many more players
who, you know, maybe really believed they could win Wimbledon because
their game was suited to grass much more than it is now. More people
probably think they can win the US Open, Australian Open, French Open.
Before, many people aimed much more for Wimbledon. Q. You
said you prepared perfectly for this tournament, focus and everything
else. Was that a problem that you had to sort out early on in your
career with the focus and going into tournaments, the way you prepared? ROGER
FEDERER: Yeah. When you're young, you're trying to find out what's the
best solution, you know. Is it getting enough matches heading into a
Slam? Is it having enough rest going into a Slam? You know, what do you
need as a player? Q. The late nights before... ROGER FEDERER: That was the last tournament of the year. I'm talking about now Grand Slam preparations, you know. For
instance, one year I went to Rosmalen. I played the semis there, lost
to Lleyton. I remember I couldn't even play the semifinals because my
whole mind was on Wimbledon, you know. So after a while, I figured out
that maybe for me it's best to not play the week before a Grand Slam,
you know. If I do, I play only an exhibition like in Kooyong. Other
than that, I really have time to prepare, you know, relax, and then be
at a hundred percent when the Grand Slam tournament comes around.
That's, I think, the difficult part early on in your career which you
have to make up your mind for. Q. You have a routine? ROGER FEDERER: Yeah, obviously.
|
