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WIMBLEDONJuly 12, 2015Reilly OpelkaLONDON, ENGLAND R. OPELKA/M. Ymer THE MODERATOR: Questions, please. Q. How does it feel to be Wimbledon champion? REILLY OPELKA: It feels great. You know, it was a good match today. Mikael made me work for it, for sure. Q. What do you think you did well today? REILLY OPELKA: I served really well. Every time I felt there could have been a pressure moment, 30‑All, 15‑30, I came up with an ace or a service winner. Q. Barring your height, you're the giant killer, four seeds this week. Talk about the whole week. REILLY OPELKA: Started out down match point the first round. Just kind of had to find a way. Luckily I was able to get through that. I progressed almost every single match from there on. I felt like I got better throughout the whole tournament. Q. Were you down a match point in the doubles yesterday, too? REILLY OPELKA: Two days ago. Q. Potentially you could win both from having been match point down? REILLY OPELKA: Yeah, yeah. I mean, doubles, when we were down match point, it was different. We were on serve a lot. But singles, down match point, it was in like a 15‑, 20‑ball rally which usually shouldn't favor me too much. I kind of got lucky. Q. You list clay as your favorite surface. You might have a different opinion now? REILLY OPELKA: Yeah. I mean, I definitely really like the grass. I'd say those two are my favorites so far. I kind of think it might change down the road maybe as I get a little stronger. I might like the hard a little better, but we'll see. Q. How much are the young Americans bouncing off each other right now? REILLY OPELKA: A ton. Tommy Paul won the French Open a couple months ago. That just motivates us, you know. Seeing him hold up the trophy is great for American tennis. But then it makes us want to try to do the same. Q. Do you all know each other well? REILLY OPELKA: Yeah. Tommy Paul was my roommate, him and Stefan Kozlov and Frances. We know each other really well. We travel together. I've known him since I was like eight. Q. Roommate down at Boca? REILLY OPELKA: Yeah. Q. The doubles final, you teamed up with Akira. Talk about how this team starts and what works well? REILLY OPELKA: I don't usually play doubles that often. With Wimbledon, it's tougher to find a court and practice. So at French Open, you know, I kind of had the idea maybe I could play doubles to get some more practice in. Akira didn't have a partner. We match up really well. He is a very good doubles player. He's doing a lot of the work this week, that's for sure. Q. Is that really true, it's difficult to get practice courts? REILLY OPELKA: Yeah. You're kind of limited here, especially like in the beginning of the tournament. The best you can get is you can split a court for like 45 minutes. So doubles is like a good opportunity to work on serve and return, which are critical. Q. Are your parents here? REILLY OPELKA: Yeah, my parents and my sister. Q. How are you going to celebrate this? REILLY OPELKA: I have no clue. I haven't thought about that. I've just been trying to stay in the moment and get through each match. Q. After you beat Taylor Fritz, the No.1 seed, how much did that help your confidence? REILLY OPELKA: I think I started to get more confidence after my second‑round win. I didn't play well in the first round. I wasn't happy with how I played. In the second round I started to find my game better. By the time I played Taylor, I mean, I was pretty high on confidence going into the match, which is kind of why I was able to play really well there. I just kind of transferred that over till today's match. Q. Traditionally they tend to give the junior winners a card into qualifying into the main draw next year. How exciting would that be for you? REILLY OPELKA: That would be great. Q. It's not set in stone, but it often happens. REILLY OPELKA: Yeah, we'll see, you know. Q. You didn't face a breakpoint today, I don't believe. Do you feel like you served particularly well today, given the circumstances? REILLY OPELKA: Yeah. I feel like I served well in big moments. Like 30‑All and deuce, I came up with a service winner or an ace almost every time, which takes a lot of pressure off me. Q. Going into the first‑set tiebreak, how much did you flash back to the one in the semi? REILLY OPELKA: I didn't think about that actually till now. That tiebreak, I started out with a double‑fault. I mean, it was just critical that I was able to get one of those two return points right away. I did. I didn't lose a service point from that point on. Q. Taylor talked after the French Open final that he thought you were going to be good on grass because of your serve. Was it that automatic for you when you got here? REILLY OPELKA: No, not at all. Luckily I came earlier. I practiced at Nottingham while Taylor was playing the main draw there. I got a good feeling for it. It didn't start off that way. Roehampton, the Grade 1 last week, I started finding it even more. By the third round here, I felt great on it. Q. What clicked? REILLY OPELKA: It's just kind of finding, like, patterns that work, kind of how you have to play on it. It's the most unique surface, in my opinion. Q. I assume that's the biggest court you ever played on. What did you think of the atmosphere? REILLY OPELKA: Yeah, it was a great experience, that's for sure. I started off a little bit nervous in the warmup. By the time I was hitting my first serve, I wasn't really thinking too much about the court, the people, whatever. Q. Do you know the fastest serve you've ever hit? REILLY OPELKA: I don't. Have no clue. Q. Did you look at all today? REILLY OPELKA: No. I don't pay attention to that. Q. 134 I think was the highest. REILLY OPELKA: I try not to pay attention 'cause then I'll start thinking like, Oh, I can hit it harder. Let's go for 138 this time. Next thing you know, my serves are going to be bouncing at the baseline. Q. Are you one of those guys that worries if the serve is not working or do you think you can work around that if it's not a good service day? REILLY OPELKA: My serve, I mean, it's what keeps me in matches obviously. I would say I found ways to work around it so far this week. First round, my serve came back a lot. It was just finding a way to get through that match. I mean, luckily I was able to find it by the third round, and I haven't really had any problems with it since. Q. You seem confident and focused. Wimbledon is such a big event. How do you keep this composure, keep focusing on the next match? REILLY OPELKA: I try to relax as much as I can off the court. Then, you know, by the time I'm in warmup, warming up for my match, like two hours before I have to be on court, is when I start like locking in, keeping the match in my head, how I want to go about it, what patterns I'm going to look for. Q. When you won it, it was not the most huge celebration. Pretty subdued. You just won Wimbledon. REILLY OPELKA: I don't know. I guess that's my initial reaction. I'm very happy to win Wimbledon, that's for sure. Q. Tommy won the last Grand Slam. Does that give you confidence to know the level of all of the U.S. players is Grand Slam junior quality? REILLY OPELKA: Yeah, for sure. I mean, I knew that prior to the French Open, before Tommy won. I knew that him and Taylor, there's a few of us that we're capable of doing that. It's just having someone that actually does it first, then all the other ones kind of follow, I think, push each other. It's just kind of how it's happened in the past. Q. What is your status, pro or amateur? REILLY OPELKA: Pro. Q. You'll be playing Kalamazoo and US Open juniors? REILLY OPELKA: I'll be playing both. Q. Noah won here last year. Two Wimbledon champs in a row. Nice time to be an American? REILLY OPELKA: Yeah, yeah. It's got to be the best it's been for the juniors in a while. I mean, it's great knowing that all the competition, like there's a high level in the United States, that we have access to practice with each other whenever. I mean, that's awesome. Q. Who inspires you in tennis on the men's side? REILLY OPELKA: I mean, I look up to everyone that's in the top 10. I mean, everyone that's even top 50, 100, it's amazing what they do. The few that I've always kind of looked up to growing up was like James Blake, Andy Roddick and Roger Federer were probably my top three. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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