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WESTERN & SOUTHERN OPENAugust 15, 2014Julien BenneteauCINCINNATI, OHIO J. BENNETEAU/S. Wawrinka THE MODERATOR: Questions, please. Q. How does it feel to speak to us after a shower up here in the interview room for the first time this week? JULIEN BENNETEAU: It means that I'm far in the tournament, so it's a good feeling for sure. Yeah. Q. Your serve has been really on all week. You've kept your self down on the break points to a minimum. What are you doing differently here in Cincinnati? JULIEN BENNETEAU: After the first round I try to maybe serve not that hard, to lose maybe some speed but to gain in percentage and to be more relax, especially on this shot. This is what I have done in the last three matches. It works well four the moment, so I hope to continue in this way. Q. It was your third straight victory over Stan. Is there anything that kind of matches up well with him? JULIEN BENNETEAU: I don't know. Maybe there is something, but it's always difficult. I think my kick serve is for him a problem. After that, I know that against him I need to play solid and strong in the baseline. If I player too light in my groundstrokes, he has the time to hit the ball harder, with a lot of spin. His ball is heavy, and after it's difficult for me. So when I can put some weight in my ball or some speed, he doesn't have too much time to put no more speed. Q. Talk about I think it was the second break to win the ‑‑ in the second set. The long point. Did you think you could get to that ball and then return it? JULIEN BENNETEAU: The lob? Q. Yeah. JULIEN BENNETEAU: At the beginning I didn't think I can get the lob, and then I saw, yeah, I can get it. I was thinking to play it through the legs, you know. At the last moment I said, No. I tried to put the ball in play and we see. My lob is okay. Ball is a little bit short, but... After that it's a little bit luck because I just anticipated the right side and I saw the court open in front of me and then I made it. But, yeah, it's not a shot I make every day. (Laughter.) Q. From your point of view, what was the biggest difference from the first set to the next two? Seemed like two different matches almost. JULIEN BENNETEAU: At the end of first set I talk to myself and I said, Okay, if I don't change anything it's going to be 1 and 3 in he 50 minutes and you're going to lose it. So I said that I need to play harder from the baseline and to put a little bit more intensity in my strokes. Even if I miss it's okay, but I have to play like this. I thought that the two, three first games of the second set are going to be tough. It's going to be a tough fight, and I prepare myself to resist to that. I say, Okay, you have to stay in the game. You have to take the score. And I broke in the first game, on his first service game in the second set. It was a tough game, but I could see that he start to force on his first serve. His percentage was going low and low. After that, because I hit the ball a little bit harder and I put, like I said, more weight in my balls, I can feel that he became tight and he forced and he made some mistakes, some unforced errors that he doesn't do normally. So I saw that at this point that the door was open. Q. I believe this is your first semifinal at a Masters level. What does that mean to you, especially at 32? You're a little bit older than some of the other guys. JULIEN BENNETEAU: Yeah, it's something. That's nice of course. It's my best result in Masters 1000. The Masters 1000 are very, very difficult tournament because the cut is like 40, 45. It's top 45 players in the world on every tournament at this level. You don't have a lot of opportunities to make a very big result in Masters 1000. When you win one, two matches when you're ranked between 30 and 50, it's already a very good tournament. So of course it means something. But the tournament is not done, and I still have a lot to do. We will see. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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