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BARCLAYS ATP WORLD TOUR FINALSNovember 22, 2015Jean-Julien RojerHoria TecauLondon, England, United Kingdom ROJER-TECAU/Bopanna-Mergea 6-4, 6-3 An interview with: JEAN-JULIEN ROJER HORIA TECAU THE MODERATOR: Questions, please. Q. How did you sleep last night? Were you nervous? JEAN-JULIEN ROJER: No, I felt pretty good going into the match. We had a short turnaround from yesterday evening to a little bit of an earlier time today to play. I think we both rested and recovered well. We slept well, felt pretty good going into the match. HORIA TECAU: I actually didn't sleep so well (smiling). I didn't sleep a lot of hours, but I knew the adrenaline and excitement will carry me on today. I was motivated to play a good match and finish the year strong. I'm very happy with the performance today. Q. Obviously this is the year-end tournament, but I'm curious to how you see this capping off a great 2015 or is it just further motivation for next year? JEAN-JULIEN ROJER: I think it's a little bit of both. It's a great end to the year, first of all. I'm going to speak for myself because when I try to speak for my partner, he goes against me. He says he didn't sleep so well (smiling). For myself it's just recapping the whole year. It's such a nice event, a big tournament, a big prize to win at the end of the year. It's just a culmination of the whole year. I think we had a good year together. I kind of take it, of course, one year at a time. But next year when we start off in January, everybody is back to zero points as far as the race and stuff is concerned. It's good momentum and good confidence and stuff. But I think it's more, for me at least, a culmination of having won a Grand Slam, coming here and playing with the best other seven teams in the world, and coming out on top. HORIA TECAU: For me as well. This year has brought a lot of confidence. After winning in Wimbledon we believed that we can win every tournament that we play. So far we believe that we can win. But actually going out there and do it brought a lot of confidence for the rest of the year. The main focus this year was for the big tournaments. We tried to schedule our weeks off, our training weeks, to peak at the right moments. It's beautiful when it all adds up and we manage to finish the year with this title. It's a great accomplishment for us to know each other better, to know what we need to do for next year. We're going to have to start from zero next year, add to this partnership like we've been doing so far, and have the new dream, the new motivation, what's the next goal. We won our first Grand Slam this year, and I'm pretty sure we want to win our next one next year, the second Grand Slam. We're going to go into the training season in December with that thought. Q. You've reached the top of your profession now. You started in the Netherlands Antilles, not a country we associate with tennis. Can you talk about the progression from very modest surroundings in tennis terms to reaching the top of your profession? JEAN-JULIEN ROJER: This one can take a while because I take a lot of pride in that. My friends always joke and tease me about that. But that is true. I'm from Curacao, it's a little island in the Caribbean. I lived there until I was 13 years old. My upbringing was there, and my tennis skills and knowledge or whatever I feel was based from there. If you see me with some strange strokes, it's because we didn't really have the best coaches there. It's how I grabbed the racquet and played and felt it. Yeah, you grow up, some things are not in your favor. We don't have a big tennis culture there and we don't have the best facilities and everything. But I had a great surrounding and a great support group in my family and the people that were around me that really motivated me and pushed me a lot. It's something I'm very proud of because we don't have a lot of players coming from the Caribbean. It doesn't breed tennis players or professionals. It's something that I think about a lot and I talk about a lot. It's a very close thing in my life. But I'm very proud to be coming from there. Now, of course, I see better days. Curacao is a Dutch colony. Because of my ranking and my achievements I get to represent Holland now, the Netherlands, in Davis Cup and the Olympics and such things. But yeah, my beginnings were tough, I had to overcome a lot of stuff. At the same time I was fortunate, my family could move me out when I was 13 years old. Some families are not that fortunate to be able to do that. From then on I fought hard for what I wanted. Now being here at this moment is an unbelievable feeling. Again, I'm happy with my family that they're here to see everything kind of come full circle. Q. Now you're No. 1, replacing the Bryan brothers. Do you think you can emulate them in any way? HORIA TECAU: That's big shoes to fill. Those guys have been great ambassadors for doubles. They've been dominating the doubles for many, many years. It's tough to think that somebody will get close to their achievements. I mean, we taking one step at a time here. Managed to win our first Grand Slam this year. We managed to finish the year No. 1. Our main focus is still on improving the team. Whatever comes after will come. That's what we've been doing so far, just working on our game, talking a lot. We communicate very well. We have a very open relationship. We can tell each other everything. That helps a lot in this sport. So we're not thinking that far ahead. We're just thinking about the next moment. Right now we're just going to enjoy this year. Unbelievable feeling. Going to start next year with great confidence from this year. JEAN-JULIEN ROJER: To add to that, right before we came here, we had a great year, finished 1. We had to beat them in the semifinals. I was having a conversation with someone and saying it's crazy, this is one year of us finishing 1. I don't know how many years they finished. But to come back next year and do it all over again, win all the matches, do the whole thing, be No. 1 again, they've done that so many times. That's ridiculous really. Q. Romania has a long tennis tradition. Have you noticed a big bump in recent years with Simona, you and Florin? Are you planning to play mixed doubles with Simona next year? HORIA TECAU: There's big growth in tennis in Romania. After Simona's success, there was a lot of kids coming to tennis, a lot of girls coming to tennis, in all the clubs, all the country. With our success on the doubles side, it's the same thing. A lot of the guys now realizing we can pursue a singles career, we can also pursue a doubles career. They see that option as well. When I was growing up, everybody was just focused on singles. You felt like if you weren't good enough, you just stop. Now there's also this option, which is a great option. I'm showing them it's a great option. They can make a great career out of it. Now Simona, too, she's a great ambassador and she brings a lot of Romanians to the courts watching her, a lot of kids coming to watch tennis. For next year, yeah, we're thinking about playing together in the Olympics. We're thinking of maybe playing one Grand Slam together before that, before the Olympics. It's a big chance, a big honor to compete there. I think that's our best option to get in. She has to play for us to have a team because there's a very small draw of mixed doubles in the Olympics. It would be great if she's motivated to play and she wants to play. Q. Do you feel the profile of doubles is on the rise now? HORIA TECAU: We believe so. We're doing a lot of stuff off court to support doubles, to promote doubles. I was able to see a growth in Romania with my success and Florin's success. There's a lot of guys now that think they can try to play doubles, which wasn't there before. A lot more people are following doubles. I can tell from the messages that I'm getting, from the press I'm getting, that the doubles is growing. I think all the countries that have top doubles players, they have the same feeling, the same growth. There's a few countries where you can constantly see that the doubles is growing, from the attendance you see at our matches. Together with the ATP, we're trying to promote the doubles game more every year. So we're doing a lot of ProAms, Kids Day. It's about telling them about the doubles, getting them to know us. That's very important for the fans, to get to know us more. JEAN-JULIEN ROJER: On doubles, yeah, I think it's on the rise as well. I think we're going in the right direction. I think the ATP is doing a good job of advertising and promoting doubles. I do think it's on the rise. There's more money being put into it as well which makes a difference and attracts more players, because I think we need to have more prize money to attract and have more players to join doubles. That's happening so far as well. I think the future looks bright and we're going in the right direction, for sure. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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