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WIMBLEDONJune 27, 2015Laura RobsonLONDON, ENGLAND LAURA ROBSON: It's been a while (smiling). THE MODERATOR: First question for Laura, please. Q. It has been a while. Was there a time when you thought you might have to miss here, as well? LAURA ROBSON: As in miss this tournament? Q. Yes. LAURA ROBSON: No. I don't know how to explain it in a way that's giving too much away. But, uhm, no, I had expectations to play in Australia and then in Paris. I thought all along that I was going to be back here, not in this particular chair, but in this moment. I'm very happy to be back here. But obviously I would have liked to have come back sooner, but it doesn't always work out like that. Q. What have you been doing ever since last week? LAURA ROBSON: Training. I've been hitting at the National Centre all week rather than here. Yeah, so today will be my first hit on the match courts. Going to play a couple more points, prepare as best as I can for Tuesday. Q. Is it quite emotional to be back? LAURA ROBSON: Yeah. It's been a lot of seeing everyone all over again for the first time in ages, and a lot of, How's your wrist? I've got my go‑to answer obviously (smiling). No, it's super exciting. It's nice to see everyone again from the locker room attendants to the ladies who work at accreditation. It's a good feeling. Q. Can you give us your go‑to answer, plus a bit more maybe? LAURA ROBSON: My go‑to answer is that, It's perfect and there's no pain. Q. What are the realistic levels of your expectations here? LAURA ROBSON: Uhm, I mean, I know how well I've played and practiced. But obviously it doesn't always translate to matches, as you must know. So my coach, my trainer, we're all very patient. If I don't play well, then it's not the end of the world, because we all learn in tennis that there's always next week, there's always going to be another week for me, because I'm injury‑free, I think that's the main thing. If it doesn't work out after this tournament, I'm going to go play some challengers in America. It's going to take a while. But, yeah, patience. Q. Have you felt in stepping up your workouts since a week ago, are things feeling incrementally better since then? LAURA ROBSON: I don't know that things are a huge amount better. But from when I first hit, you know, from 10 minutes in mini tennis a couple months ago to how it is now, every day has been better. Every time I've played from the back, every time I've played points, it's been a little bit better every day. That little bit is a lot to me. You go from hardly having any timing, to being able to last out some points last week with Wozniacki. Yeah, for me everything is positive at this point. Q. Any moments during that long layoff where your commitment to come back wavered at all? LAURA ROBSON: No, I was joking with my coach yesterday. I was here most of the year. I moved over to Florida in October. We've been there ever since. We're both kind of ready to start traveling again, ready to get back into the mix of things. Yeah, I wouldn't have moved to the randomest place in Florida if I didn't want to be doing this. Q. Does it feel as if you've started again? LAURA ROBSON: In a way, yes. When I first started hitting again, it must have been in October, then I had pain again, injury‑free, then a couple of other things popped up. It's constantly been starting fitness again, starting rehab all over again. So, yeah, it's been a long process. But, uhm, you know, now that I'm back into tournaments and back into the tour, I think it would be more of a steady progression. Q. You're coming back. Your first main draw is going to be at the biggest tournament in the world. Huge crowds, huge interest. After this you'll be playing much smaller tournaments in America. What do you think that's going to be like? LAURA ROBSON: I mean, to be honest, I would have preferred to start at smaller tournaments than this. I think I'm pretty realistic that my level is not at the point where it was before I was injured. Yeah, I would have preferred to have started with even 10K's, 25s. But then we kind of weighed it up and the disappointment I would have had not being here again, two years in a row, kind of outweighed the whole starting at 25s. Q. Did you or your management company have to exert any pressure to get a wild card? LAURA ROBSON: Here? Q. Yes. LAURA ROBSON: Uhm, I mean, you'd have to ask Max. I don't know if he'd tell you (laughter). No, you know, I know all the Committee members here very well. I first met them when I was 13. They told me before Eastbourne that they wanted to see how things went there. They called me the next day. I think they were just interested to hear from me directly whether I was in any pain, whether I had any niggles. I gave them an honest answer, then they announced that I had one. It was a very simple conversation. Q. There's a kind of saying, You don't know what you've got till it's gone. I'm wondering if you're perhaps feeling a bit that way? The tedium sometimes of being on the tour, the grind of training and playing and losing, the disappointments, whatever, if perhaps now that you've come back, having experienced what it's like to not play for a long time, if maybe it's kind of rekindled a desire in you? LAURA ROBSON: Yeah, I mean, I don't think anything is worse for an athlete than doing over a year of rehab. So even though last week I got absolutely pummeled, getting pummeled is better than not playing anything at all. In the grand scheme of things, I don't think that the desire has been rekindled because it never went away. But, yeah, I'm happy to be playing in a way that I wasn't before. And losing is not the end of the world, because there are definitely worse things. Q. Do you have to do a lot more stuff with your wrist to make sure everything is okay in the future? LAURA ROBSON: I mean, I do rehab every day anyway, on both wrists really because I had a problem with this one before, as you may know. I think all of us do rehab on ankles, wrists, any small joints, things that can flare up. I'll probably be doing that for the rest of my career. Q. What did you do to take your mind off the fact that you probably had a few months before your comeback? LAURA ROBSON: I got a cat. She lives with my parents now. In Bradenton in Florida, there's a puppy store near where I live, they know me by name in there because I go so often. So, a lot of puppies, a lot of country music. Don't judge (smiling). Yeah, a lot of things away from tennis to just be a normal person outside of the injury. Q. Country music has a sad contents to it. Does that reflect your mood? LAURA ROBSON: Not recently. I don't know if you've been reading up on the country music scene. There's this thing called Bro‑country, which is really about having a great time. There's no substance to the lyrics, but they're catchy. Q. With the puppy thing, I assume you didn't actually go in and buy one. It was more, One day I will have a dog? LAURA ROBSON: No. Every day that I went in there, I would send a picture to my mum. She was like, Don't you dare. She knows eventually it will end up in her house. So she has enough animals. We have two dogs already. She takes in all the strays, all the stray cats near where they live in Greece. Outside of the two cats that live in the house, there's another nine roaming around the garden. She has her hands full. Q. What is the cat called? LAURA ROBSON: Waffles. I was a bit annoyed because somebody said I should have named her Katniss. Katniss, Hunger Games. I was in this frame of mind where I thought Waffles was so smart that she already knew her name after two days, so I couldn't change it. So Waffles Katniss Robson. Q. Do you think you've gotten mentally stronger after this whole period? LAURA ROBSON: Yeah, yeah, I think so. You know, it's been a huge experience and a huge life changer in a way. As I said before, it's a long process and it's still not over. You know, I've got another month, couple of months, maybe even longer, before I'm completely back to normal in my tennis. Yeah, it's going to be ongoing for a long time, but it does take a lot of mental effort to keep going. Q. Over the last 18 months, have you had any contact with Juan Martin del Potro? Have you exchanged notes about your wrists? LAURA ROBSON: We've spoken to his physio quite a lot. My coach knows her from before anyway. We're obviously very saddened to hear he's had another one, another surgery. It did very much help in the first few months after the surgery, knowing someone who had already gone through that process. You know, when I felt a pain, we'd text her and say, Is this normal? Did you guys feel this? It was reassuring to have someone say, Don't worry about it, this is the type of pain you can push through, this is just scar tissue. Along with the actual doctor and the surgeon, there was a big group of people helping out. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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