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BRISBANE INTERNATIONAL PRESENTED BY SUNCORPJanuary 8, 2015James DuckworthBRISBANE, QUEENSLAND J. DUCKWORTH/J. Nieminen THE MODERATOR: Questions, please. Q. Saved match point in the second set reaching your first quarterfinal on the ATP Tour. Must be quite a night for you. JAMES DUCKWORTH: Yeah, really excited, really happy. It was a tough battle. Jarkko is a really good player. He's been around for a while and he's a tough competitor. Yeah, really, really happy to have won and play in my first quarterfinal here in Brisbane. Q. What did you tell yourself after the second set when you made it a set all? JAMES DUCKWORTH: I just wanted to really to focus on holding my serve and then putting pressure on his serve, looking to be aggressive and try and dictate. I think I did that quite well in the game that I broke at 1‑Love in the third. Q. You talk about your aggression. You can already see through your two matches this year it's gone a step up from last year. JAMES DUCKWORTH: Yeah. Well, we worked on it a lot, like I said, through the off‑season. We really did a lot of specific style of play training. I think I've just gotten better at executing those patterns. Q. And a fair bit of work on the volleys as well. JAMES DUCKWORTH: Yeah, that goes hand in hand. Transitioning forward and then obviously finishing at net is a big part of my game and something that I've improved on. I still think I've got a lot of improvement left. Q. Dare to dream what your ranking may be after this week? JAMES DUCKWORTH: I haven't looked. I don't usually like to look where it's going to be before the tournament is over. I'm still going, so I can still improve. Q. How long have you been waiting for a result like this? JAMES DUCKWORTH: Well, I feel like, you know, I've gradually just been improving my game over the years. I've been sort of knocking on the door for a little bit now. I think just that really good pre‑season under my belt and working on a few areas of my game has got me to this place. Q. How far have you set goals? Tournament by tournament, or certain things you want to achieve this year? JAMES DUCKWORTH: I mean, sat down and definitely ‑‑ spoke to my coach about obviously getting inside that top 100 as soon as possible. You know, the goals are to be main draw French and then Wimbledon. But, yeah, haven't really looked too much past that. We set some goals with my game, areas I want to work on. I think if I get better on the those areas, which I think I have been, the ranking will take care of itself. Q. We asked Lleyton Hewitt about few emerging young guys the other night, and he smiled when we mentioned your name and said, I love Ducks. JAMES DUCKWORTH: (Smiling.) Lleyton loves me. That's nice. I love you too, Lleyton.  (Smiling.) Yeah, he's a great guy. I've known him for a number of years now. We've practiced a bit when we were at some events, when we're both home in Sydney. I've learned a lot from him just through his work ethic, the way he trains and goes about his business. In particular, like the other day it was pretty impressive. Obviously he had a tough match against Grothy, and you guys probably don't know, but he's out there on the practice courts at 8:00 a.m. the next morning and he's going three hours.  That's the type of guy he is. He's helped me a lot along the way speaking to me about my game. I speak to him about opponents as well. He's just a great role model for us all. Q. Do you feel comfortable going to him? JAMES DUCKWORTH: Yeah. Q. He offers himself up to you? JAMES DUCKWORTH: Yeah. I speak to him a lot. Message him a bit. Yeah, he's always happy to help. Q. What's the talk like in the locker room? There are three Australians in the quarterfinals, you and Sam and Bernard. JAMES DUCKWORTH: Yeah, well, the Aussies doing really well this week. I think we've got quite a few guys who can go deep in those sort of events, a lot of guys with big games. You know, it's exciting times ahead, I think. Q. You've exacted revenge against a couple guys from past Brisbane defeats, and you might have the chance to get revenge again with Roger Federer. JAMES DUCKWORTH: Well, I just spoke to John and I think I'll be playing him tomorrow night. (Smiling.) Either way it's going to be tough. Obviously Roger is a favorite, but John is a Brisbane boy. He's been up here. I've been training with him the last sort of seven weeks and he's hitting the ball well. I wouldn't write him off. Yeah, I am looking forward to it either way. Quarterfinals of an ATP event here in Australia, should be fun. Q. What are your memories about your first‑round match against Roger at the Australian Open? JAMES DUCKWORTH: Well, obviously he's a great player, one of the best in history. It was a bit of a sort of a tough time for me. I was struggling with a bit of an elbow injury then. But what I remember, he had a really good serve. His forehand obviously is a big weapon of his. He's a tough player. (Smiling.) Q. Social media following guys talk about the hash tag quack and all that. JAMES DUCKWORTH: I didn't even know that. I'm not a big tweeter as some of the other people, I probably should get on it. It's great all the support that I'm getting. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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