	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

QATAR TOTAL OPEN

February 25, 2016

Andrea Petkovic

Doha, Qatar

A. PETKOVIC/G. Muguruza

6-1, 7-5, 6-2

THE MODERATOR: Questions for Andrea Petkovic, please.

Q. You're having an amazing week here in Doha. You did a fantastic job against Garbine. She upset you in the second set. How did you manage to come back?
Second question, you're here in the semifinal. You're going to play against a very young, talented Ostapenko. How will you prepare this semifinal? Will you go with your instinct like today, as well?

ANDREA PETKOVIC: Yeah, well, I played a really good set, a really good first set. I was serving well. I was being aggressive. I managed to make her move. Then she had a medical timeout after the first set. It threw me off a little bit of the rhythm.

Maybe also I didn't go for my shots a hundred percent anymore. She just started playing more aggressive. Started making more shots. Started moving better. I felt like I was pushed behind the baseline. And I knew that I still had my chances, though, in the second set.

I still should have maybe got into the tiebreak. I had 40-Love on 5-6. I was quite annoyed with myself that I lost that game. But I knew in the third set if I want to win this match, I have to get back to the baseline. I have to be more aggressive.

So I started attacking the second serves again and felt just much better in the third overall.

And Jelena Ostapenko, I actually watched both of her matches against Petra Kvitova and today, I saw the second set. And she's playing tremendous tennis.

I actually kind of discovered her, is maybe the wrong word, but I saw her playing qualifying in Linz last year, and I said to myself, Wow, this girl's really talented. I think she's going to do some damage on tour. It's really nice to see I have a great prediction in myself.

I don't feel any pressure at all. I've been working on so many things and they are slowly coming together. I'm still not where I want to be. There are still a lot of things I want to work on.

I'm just taking it step by step and trying to put a good performance out there as I did today and see where it takes me.

Q. You mentioned your new coach the other day. You're sharing him with Gilles Simon?
ANDREA PETKOVIC: Yeah.

Q. Have you gotten to know Gilles rather well since you've been working together? Can you tell us some things?
ANDREA PETKOVIC: Yeah, much better actually than I used to know him obviously. We never talked before. Just said hi. Now I got to know him a little better. I didn't know how funny he was. He's really funny. I guess not everybody's humor, but he cracks me up.

He's a very smart guy, very intelligent, so I always enjoy my conversations with him. He's very strong-minded and opinionated and I like that.

So it's been a pleasure to get to know him. He has much more the facets to his personality than I knew before or than I maybe cared about.

Tennis players care only about ourselves and it's really nice to get to know all of his, yeah, sides of his personality.

Q. How do you two organize when it's, like, a women's events and a men's event? How do you choose where Jan goes?
ANDREA PETKOVIC: Well, obviously Gilles is maybe still the priority for Jan because he has worked with him for a longer time. But during all the combined events, Jan is trying to cover both our matches.

And Simon Guffaw is the brother of David Guffaw actually, and he's sort of the assistant coach of Jan de Witt. He's traveling with me when Jan is with Gilles.

I'm looking to take him also to tournament where they are combined events, so if Jan cannot be there, that I have Simon with me because I enjoy working with him. He's really a great guy.

We're tying to find solutions and it's been working really well. Nowadays it's easier. It would have been difficult 20 years ago. Now you have FaceTime, Internet, statistics. You can do everything on the computer if I had one, because I lost mine it. But that's okay. That's a different story.

Q. You have quite a unique career. If I remember correctly, you said you were thinking about going to university before you started professional career. Of course you chose tennis. Beginning of your career, you have been struggling to top 10 and are suffering with injury, thinking about retirement and then you came back at that level again. How do you see your career so far?
ANDREA PETKOVIC: Yeah, it's been probably interesting path that I took. My father actually wanted me to study. He didn't want me to play tennis. I decided to still do it.

If I wasn't going to enter the top 50 by the end of two years, I would have gone back to the university. And by the end of two years, I was actually 49, so that was lucky.

Yeah, I've always had my ups and downs in my career, but I wouldn't want to miss anything. I regret a few things, but I never would take them back because it makes me who I am today.

I've been always a reflective person. I feel like I am so much a stronger personality today than I was at 21 because of all the ups and downs I've been through and all the injuries that set me back. I had to climb back to the top.

Tennis has always been a great love and hate story for me. I love it so much that I hate it at the same time. I guess love and had are very close together.

It's torn me apart, but it has also given me the most beautiful moments of my life. I wouldn't want to miss anything of it.

Q. Speaking of ups and downs, one of your good friend, Angelique Kerber, she also talked she had gone through up and downs. Eventually she won the slam. Could you talk about her achievement and friendship with her?
ANDREA PETKOVIC: Yeah, we are very close friends. Actually we've known each other now for 15 years, maybe longer. I don't want to say it then people know how old we are.

But we've known each other for such a long time. We've grown closer and closer over the years just sharing all the emotions, all the upsets, the Fed Cups, beautiful emotions, sad emotions.

We've grown closer and closer. For me it's been such an emotional thing to see her win the match against Serena because I was there when she had the bad times. I was there when she didn't believe she was going to win something big and when she listened all the doubters that were doubting us as the "lost generation," or used to doubt us. Now that she's won the Grand Slam, it's a different story.

So it's been so emotional for me to see her so happy fulfilling her dream. I actually get the goose bumps now when I think of it because it's been such a beautiful week that they shared.

We didn't get to celebrate yet. That's still on bucket list. Hopefully we can find a day or a night during the season where we can celebrate her Grand Slam title.

Q. Just back on your coaching situation. Does it help you that you've got a coach who's got a foot in both the women's and men's game? Do you think there are things that you can benefit from from his knowledge of men's game?
ANDREA PETKOVIC: Oh, yeah, it helps me a lot. I actually learned quite a few things with Jan and Gilles, both of them, because men approach the game much differently than women. They are just less emotional and much more rational.

Also I think girls, I don't know, maybe I'm leaving myself out the window right now, but I think girls, they always want to play the perfect match. For example, I think especially Gilles Simon, because he's also this type of player, he's totally fine winning a match where the other guy has 65 unforced errors. He still sees his positives, what he did to the other guy that he did unforced errors.

I think the girls, they win 6-2, 6-3, and the one missed a lot of balls, and they're like, Yeah, I didn't play so well. The other girl was bad. Putting so much pressure on this perfectionism that women I think a lot of time have.

It's really nice to get this other side, Yeah, I won, good for me. I think it's good to have this attitude about just pushing through and winning matches no matter how ugly or how good they are.

Q. Is there anything works the other way, that men could learn from the women's game?
ANDREA PETKOVIC: Well, I think -- I'm not sure. You would have to ask Gilles himself. I think he got a little more respect for women's tennis after he saw how much I worked in the offseason and how tough I was and how I pulled through at all the practices. Didn't moan or cry around.

He didn't say it, but I feel like when he looks at me, he maybe has a little more respect.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297