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WIMBLEDONJune 29, 2015Liam BroadyLONDON, ENGLAND L. BROADY/M. Matosevic THE MODERATOR: Questions, please. Q. A few hours ago now, but a fantastic performance and comeback from you. Talk us through it. LIAM BROADY: To be honest, it's really not sunk in yet. Yeah, I thought I didn't start off that great. I thought I could have probably won the first two sets, to be honest. I think we were both quite nervous. That's the advantage of playing a best‑of‑five set match. I had a lot longer to find my game. When I did, I tried to take advantage of it. I think he lost belief after the first couple of sets. I had a little bit of a lapse at the start of the fifth because obviously I'd found myself level after being so far down, but managed to sort of recollect my thoughts and push back. Q. Was there a specific point in the match where you thought it was really coming your way, you could feel it? LIAM BROADY: To be honest, I thought I was close in the first two sets, so I knew I just needed to get, well, a break and go ahead. I believed the whole match to be honest, but once I won the third, I thought, Something's going to happen. Q. What does it mean to you to win your first Grand Slam match? LIAM BROADY:  I mean, it means everything, to be honest. To the guys that have supported me up until now, my trainer Ric, my coach Mark, and my mentor Adrian. I do it as much for myself as I do for those guys. I know how much time they put into it. But personally for me, it's my home tournament. I've had good success here before. It's been a long road to finding myself in the main draw of a slam. Couldn't be happier. Q. You obviously had experience playing here before in the juniors. What was the difference playing in the main draw in the seniors here? LIAM BROADY: It wasn't that different, to be honest. Obviously I've improved as a player since then and I think improved mentally since then. A lot's changed. But playing those junior tournaments stands you in good stead for actually them playing in the men's. I think that was one of the main reasons why I played them, and I felt comfortable out there today. Q. Talk a bit about the help that Andy Murray has been to you. You practiced a lot with him. I don't know if you've been out to Miami. LIAM BROADY: I've never been out to Miami. That's probably because of the time I had practiced with him before Davis Cup, and I was actually pretty terrible. Obviously you've got to be a pretty good player to play with Andy and I was quite nervous around him. Obviously, at Davis Cup I had a chance to practice with him a bit again. I was a bit better. It's just good to be around Andy. He wants the British players to do well. He really puts his time back into the game, back into the British players. I think to have someone like that is invaluable for British tennis. Yeah, it's just fantastic. Q. Your sister Naomi came to watch your match. How does it feel to win your first match at Wimbledon without the support of your dad? Will you be able to see him later watching your sister play, and will you sit with him if you see him later? LIAM BROADY: I probably won't be sitting with him, no. To be honest, my dad's not even popped into my head with the result. But it was fantastic to have my sister there and the rest of my family watching. That's what makes it more special, is being able to share such a moment that I'll remember for the rest of my life with so many people that I love. Q. Do you think this win might kind of make your family come back together? LIAM BROADY: I doubt it. But we'll see. Q. What did you think about the warning you were given? You had some comments to make at the time. LIAM BROADY: To be honest, emotions run high when you're on court. I deserved the code violation, to be honest. It was all involved obscenity I think, and I was swearing quite a lot at the back. But I was doing it to the guys in my corner, and otherwise people were making noise in the stands, so I thought no one would hear it. I just said to him, Look, you know, there's guys who do it on Centre Court much worse and they shout at the top of their voices and they get nothing. I think that it's like a $2500 fine. I was told that afterwards. I wouldn't have swore if I knew how much it was. It's really strange sometimes to see guys like that get away with it. I think maybe sometimes the umpires are intimidated by them and don't give it to them. But I deserved it, so... Q. Been a while coming in here. How have you physically fronted up after your first five‑set match? Any kind of physical issues? LIAM BROADY: I mean, it's my first‑ever five‑set match on the tour. At La Manga, before the Australian Open, my preseason, I think a few went the distance, a few four‑setters. It stands you in good stead. Obviously never having had that experience before until this Christmas, it was good to just get that in the locker room, to understand how you need to handle your focus, how your game can tail on and off during the match, because obviously it's such a long time. Q. How much does this make up for all the sacrifices that you make on tour, all the hotel rooms in Uzbekistan, all the hard yards you put in in the winter? LIAM BROADY: Yeah, it's fantastic. I mean, for me, I mean, where I'm at at the moment, even Uzbekistan, I don't feel like that's the sacrifice I made. I feel the sacrifice I made was the two or three years I made playing the futures. That was really tough for me. As I said to Mike, I'm playing with much better players now, some of the best players in the world week in and week out. That's where I want to be. That's how I'm going to improve. So even though, you know, I was in Uzbekistan, I lost to Gabashvili, and he I think went to third round or fourth round of the French the next tournament. It's just, you know, always learning at these sorts of tournaments. Q. You mentioned that you were swearing. There's been quite a lot of discussion in social media since your match that the umpire was mic'd up for it. Did you know that? LIAM BROADY: I didn't know that. Being from sort of Manchester and 21, you know, my friends, you know, people swear. But it's not right to do it, obviously, in front of a couple thousand people, especially when there's young kids in the audience. I get why he gave me the codey. I don't know. He can't really give himself a codey. So I don't know, yeah. Q. On the plus side, as well as getting through, it's a £47,000 paycheck. Is that something to treat yourself with or go down a hole? LIAM BROADY: That will go away down a hole somewhere. Yeah, I'll keep that one safe. Yeah, it will just be there. When I need it for the tournaments and for the travel, I know that I've got that security. So it's great. Q. Did your dad text you? Has he communicated any congratulations? LIAM BROADY: No. Q. Did he even watch the game? LIAM BROADY: I don't know whether he watched it or not because obviously we're not in touch, so, yeah. Q. £47,000, which equals almost your entire career, have you slept on friend's floors or what it's like sometimes? LIAM BROADY: Like I said, I've got some fantastic friends, and they've been patient with me over the last couple years, sharing beds and stuff. You know, get my own bed every now and then. But to be honest, I travel more than anything. That's what the money's good for, because I probably spend 35 to 40 weeks on the road. And even then I'm back in Nottingham or at the National Centre training, so I spend very little time back at home. Q. The first day of the first week, you pulled off this kind of result. What do you think it does for the feel‑good thing? LIAM BROADY: It's exciting. I wanted the crowd to have something to get into. I like interacting with the crowd. I like them being there to push me on. I think that's what happened today. I think it does add a bit of a feel‑good factor to the first day, a Brit pulling through with the crowd so engaged like they were. I don't know. I'm not going to overestimate. I was playing a guy ranked 137 in the world. But Andy, I don't know what he is at the moment, 3 at the moment? He's worlds apart, so... Q. How long have you had the beard? LIAM BROADY: I had it running up to Davis Cup. So that took about a couple months to grow (smiling). In a moment of madness I shaved it off after Davis Cup. I just looked in the mirror, I had this electric razor. I wanted to see what I looked like without the beard again. I regretted it, so I grew it back. Q. How important did you feel it was today to show everybody your improvement and hard work? LIAM BROADY: Well, to be honest, I'm not sure how much I could believed I could win a round of Wimbledon before today, even going into the match. But I knew that, you know, belief didn't really matter as long as I focused on point by point, both of our games, just sort of let the confidence slide to the side. Because I think we were both on pretty bad runs going into the match. I'm hoping that it will sort of push me on and give me a bit more fire to want to get back here. Q. How much of a step up is the next round going to be? LIAM BROADY: Goffin next? Q. Yes. LIAM BROADY: I don't know. Depends how he plays on the day.  He's obviously one of the seeds, so he's one of the very best players in the world. But everyone can have off days and everyone can have good days. I'll tell you when I play him. Q. Does belief from today come into that? LIAM BROADY: Yeah. Today was massive for me. Just to, like I said, to have my first‑ever first‑round men's win at Wimbledon, I feel good about my game now. I didn't feel like I played my best tennis today, but I still came through. That gave me even more confidence. Q. Does this fantastic win help vindicate your decision to go back in‑house with the LTA? That must have been quite difficult. LIAM BROADY: To be honest, for me personally, people would disagree, but that's the way of the world, people have their opinions, but it was always the right decision for me whether I got the results or not. I had to kind of grow up and mature as a person, not just a tennis player by sort of doing things on my own, even things like, I've said it before, filing your tax, getting your own racquets strung, booking your own flights. It's all stuff you need to learn and grow up and realize that you're not living in an enclosed world anymore. I'll always say, I think it was the right decision. Q. When you have a win like this, you come up against a seed like you touched on, how do you review that? A reward for the hard work? LIAM BROADY: I don't know if he's known me for years, but I've known Goffin for years. Seen him play in futures in Belgium when I was about 15. I think I'll be comfortable going on court with him. It's not like I'm going to be stepping on court with Novak Djokovic. At the same time obviously he's a fantastic player, so... Like you say, it's a reward. I've got nothing to lose. He's got everything to lose in a sense, so I'll see what happens. Q. Did you say a speech in Glasgow at the Davis Cup? LIAM BROADY: On your Davis Cup debut, in a sense, on your first day, you have to, it's your initiation, you have to do a speech. All the guys were getting in my head before it. I was smart. I spent three or four days preparing for it. I don't think anybody's done that before. I took it to a new level (smiling). It was fantastic. Again, it's good fun. It's good to sort of do that. I can play in front of thousands of people. It doesn't bother me that much. Whereas, speaking in front of a couple thousand people is terrifying. It was just a rambling, to be honest. I nattered on about nothing. Q. Has Leon given any indication that you'll have a part to play in the preparations, at least, for the Davis Cup? LIAM BROADY: No, to be honest. And I think I might be in the States for tournaments then. But I'll have to see how the tournaments fall. Q. On the second round, obviously a big chance to be on a show court of some kind. How do you view that? LIAM BROADY: I think as my past results have probably shown, I've played better on the bigger stages, so I'm looking forward to it. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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