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WIMBLEDONJuly 6, 2015Roger FedererLONDON, ENGLAND R. FEDERER/R. Bautista Agut THE MODERATOR: Questions, please. Q. I was watching the match. You had John McEnroe and Tim Henman raving about your performance. Do you think you made a statement today? Talk about how much you served and volleyed as well. ROGER FEDERER: No, I don't think I made a statement. It was nice to play a baseliner after two big servers. I did a nice job making the transition. Clearly I felt I had more time on the return, still was able to play aggressive tennis, committed, you know, on the return as well, which sometimes all of a sudden if you have time, you tend to just get it in and get the rally started. It was a good match. I got off to a good start and kept rolling. Obviously maybe Roberto wasn't at his very best. Midway through the second, he hurt himself. Still, he was out there and he was actually still moving okay, so I had to put him away, which I was able to do so. Q. You come to this tournament virtually untroubled. Can you remember a time when you've had it not easy, but so smooth a passage to this stage of the tournament? ROGER FEDERER: I would have to look at the draws, you know. Yeah, I mean, it's been a good run now. I'm happy to be back in the quarters here. This is really when it gets much more interesting, when you can look ahead a little bit without doing that too much because obviously your opponents are going to get tougher and tougher. I'm not going to look further than Gilles Simon who has caused me difficulties in the past. I played him tough in some of the majors, Australia, French Open, we played five sets both times there. That's my focus really right now. But it's definitely been a good run here and Halle. I hope to keep it up. Q. You've been at the top for about 12 years now. A lot of players talked about how you inspired them growing up. Why do you think there haven't been a wave of younger players from Switzerland coming up behind you? ROGER FEDERER: We have Stan. I mean, he's younger than me. He won slams. For Switzerland, we're very happy with that, I'll tell you that. Q. But kids. ROGER FEDERER: Don't know. In Switzerland we probably have a lot of choice of different sports. You know, we have the Alps which clearly people lean maybe toward skiing, ice hockey, so forth. Soccer clearly is also very big. So maybe for tennis to roll in, like the way it did during the times when Boris and Steffi made their move in Germany, is never going to happen to that extent. It's harder to catch everybody's attention to Switzerland, to be quite honest. It took me a couple of slams and a few years as world No. 1 for people to actually to realize I was doing quite unbelievable. It's not something that happens every single day. We've also been very spoiled with Martina, Patty, Rosset won the Olympic gold. Now with Stan, and also with Belinda and Timea now, it's going very well. We'd, of course, like to have a broader base of players coming through. I believe the Federation is doing a good job. It's expanding the tennis center. They have more kids coming through there now again. I believe it's a good tennis school to go through. It's where I came through. I hope it inspires still some players to come through maybe hopefully in the next 10 years. Q. You are aware that Juan Martin del Potro is not able to come back to the tour yet. Would you encourage him to play with a one‑handed backhand instead of two? Do you think it's feasible at this age? ROGER FEDERER: He definitely could. But is it a goal to be ranked 80 in the world, you know? Not really. I think if you want Juan Martin back, you want him back at the very top where he belongs. It's been rough to see him go under the knife so many times now, not be around really. I've always enjoyed the matches against him. He's one of the best ball strikers we've ever had in the game. So I wish him a speedy recovery and a return with a double‑handed backhand. It's like if you asked me to play double‑handed, it's not really going to work, you know what I mean? Q. The women's singles draw has had fewer matches on Centre and 1. Fewer than other slams. Caroline criticized that scheduling today. What do you think about that? Do you think it should be allocated more evenly here, especially considering women's matches are shorter, so if you have two men's and one women's? ROGER FEDERER: It's totally up to the tournament organizers to make that call. Usually it's always very balanced, to be quite honest. But here this is grass, there's no night session. Matches start earlier maybe. They don't want to have too many people running around on the grass, I don't know. So they only have three matches, like today, on Centre. That's not a lot. Usually you have four to five or six. Matches start at 11 and finish at midnight, let's say, at the US Open. I think it goes a little bit with that. But it is what it is. I'm sure if they're doing it, it's not because of bad intentions. It's just the scheduling and thinking that maybe those are the matches now they want to play on Centre, that's it. Of course, they would try to be fair. I would be surprised if it would be otherwise. Q. I know we're mid tournament, but a question relating to your sons. To me, the name Lenny is short for Leonard, and the name Leo is a shortened name for Leonard. Can you explain the naming of your sons. ROGER FEDERER: I can, yeah. I just like both names. And my wife, as well. It didn't have more meaning than that. So it was very simple. Q. There was a moment on Court2 today when Kyrgios appeared to tank a game, not try. ROGER FEDERER: One game? Q. One game, yeah. Can you understand someone getting frustrated and doing that or do you find that disrespectful? ROGER FEDERER: Towards whom? Q. Towards the crowd who paid good money to watch you. ROGER FEDERER: A game is like 55 seconds. Again, did he really do it or not? A game where a guy serves well, is that tanking, too? It's like sometimes it's part of like a boxer when he puts his hands down, is that tanking? Then he swings freely again. I think we shouldn't dig too deep into those kind of things. If you told me he did an entire set, plus more, plus this, I'd say, Okay, it's a bit much probably. But I just watched the end of the third, the end of the fourth. He was fighting then. He was really wanting to win. He should have been in the fifth at the end. In my opinion, it was a great match and it was close. The fans got their money's worth, in my opinion. It was a close match last year. He saved nine match points against Richard. Today two. So one game to me is part of tactics, as well, sometimes to throw the other guy off. Maybe yourself, you can be frustrated and just not feel like it for a couple of points. Especially a younger guy, it's going to happen more often than one of the top guys that have been around, that just like say, Okay, point mentality, we'll do it again and again and again and again. For a younger guys, it's a little bit boring at times, which I understand. Q. Your serve hasn't been broken since Kohlschreiber broke it in Halle. Over 100 games now. Any reason for that? ROGER FEDERER: Guys are returning terrible (laughter). No. I don't know. Yeah, no, I mean, I got things figured out at the moment. Clearly having the extra week helped me be perfectly prepared for Wimbledon. So I think less question marks going into this tournament. In Halle I could have easily lost in the first round. I was down 5‑4 in the tiebreaker with a mini break down. Fast conditions, late at night, slippery. I was lucky to get through that one. Once I got through that one, I really was able to feel better, serve more consistent. Yeah, just did a really good job. Just focusing. That thing we were talking about, point per point. Especially on grass, that's what it takes. I did a good job. Then again, I look at my next‑round opponent. Gilles Simon is one of the best return players we have in the game. I would think I'll be tested a lot. So that streak's maybe coming to an end, in my opinion. Q. This year you played in Istanbul. You have many fans there. They loved you being there. Would you say a couple of words of how the experience was for you. ROGER FEDERER: It was a great experience. I really enjoyed my time in Istanbul. It's an amazing city. I was happy to be in Turkey for the first time. It's one of the countries I've never been to. Plus it was well‑organized. It was the first time they had a tournament there. I don't know if it's ever or for the first time in a long time. Anyways, it was a nice center court. It's going to have a roof next year as well. Crowds were unbelievable. Packed every time. Nice weather as well. Night session at times. It was great. And I hope I can return before my career ends one day. Maybe next year, who knows. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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