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WIMBLEDONJuly 5, 2016Todd ReidJordanne WhileyLondon, England THE MODERATOR: Ladies and gentlemen, we have an opportunity to ask Jordanne Whiley and Gordon Reid a few questions. Who would like to ask the first question. Q. To both of you. I know you guys have been campaigning to play singles here at Wimbledon for a while. How happy are you about it finally coming to pass, and the challenges maybe of singles on the grass? JORDANNE WHILEY: Yeah, I think now is the right time. It's really a good time to showcase our sport. I think the quality of wheelchair tennis is at its highest. I think it's going to be really difficult on the grass because we've only really known doubles and now we have to cover a whole court. I'm fit, I'm ready, we've had some good training, so I think it's going to be interesting. GORDON REID: Yeah, yeah, I'm just really excited to get going. I've always grown up watching Wimbledon on TV, mainly the singles event. It was always a dream of mine to play singles here. To now have that opportunity to be a part of the first field of players that's going to go down in history is a massive opportunity. Can't wait to get out on the match court now. Q. What is it about grass that makes it so much tougher than other surfaces? JORDANNE WHILEY: It's a little bit like carpet in a way that it's got a lot of friction. With all the rain this year, it's going to be quite soft. So for us, just pushing is going to be really tough on the shoulders. Especially if the match is going to go like three or four hours, we have to make sure we're really ready. GORDON REID: It's just the movement side of things. On grass you don't hold the momentum. You push the same way as you would on hard court, so you're constantly having to generate power and shift your body weight every time you push the chair. It's going to be a lot more tiring on the upper body. Like Jordanne said earlier, I think that wheelchair singles is going to look good on the grass. I think everybody is happy about the inclusion. Q. Is the low bounce tough, too? GORDON REID: Probably not as tough for us as somebody like Isner (smiling). It's probably easier for us when we're already sitting pretty low. Clay is probably harder in that respect because we're not that tall and we can't jump. Hit it over our heard, it's a lot harder. Q. How do you go about training? Do you have courts with an artificial surface that can replicate the court? JORDANNE WHILEY: No. We actually train on grass courts, which we've been doing this week and last week, as well. It's getting the balance right because we don't want to do too much that we get injured, because it is very difficult. We need to make sure that we are actually training to be able to build that stuff up in our shoulders to make sure that's okay. GORDON REID: It's difficult to prepare because there's not that many surfaces similar to grass. We only really get the opportunity to train on grass the week before the event. What I've been doing in training is a lot of like bungee work. I've had my coach running behind me holding a bungee, which she's enjoyed a lot (smiling). That kind of gives you the resistance similar to grass. Apart from that, unless you maybe weight yourself up, put some extra weight on your chair or something, it's difficult to simulate it. Q. We obviously don't know what to expect for grass singles, but do you expect there will be any parallels in what we're used to seeing in Wimbledon singles, more net play, serve being more important? JORDANNE WHILEY: I think the rallies will definitely be shorter. I think serve and return is going to be the most important thing for us, who can get the first strike in, who can get their serve in the right place. I think it's less about being in the rally and more about that kind of first strike or third ball. GORDON REID: I've been doing a lot of work on my volleys. I don't know about everybody else. But that's grass court tennis, isn't it? The classic grass court tennis is a lot of slicing, a lot of volleying. The players with better serves normally do well. I think it will be similar for us. Q. Can you both address your first‑round matches. And, Jordanne, where are the strawberry earrings? It's Wimbledon. JORDANNE WHILEY: I know, I think I've lost them actually. It's quite bad. GORDON REID: I'm going to wear mine (laughter). JORDANNE WHILEY: Yeah, I mean, draws are always a little bit, like, nerve‑wracking because you don't know who you're going to get. Especially, because we have no experience about Wimbledon singles, we don't know how it's going to go. I came here with a mind like, whoever I get, I'm going to have to play anyway. Obviously I've had ideal draws and not‑so‑ideal draws. I'm pretty pleased with my draw and I'm just going to go out and play my best tennis. GORDON REID: Yeah, when you look at the field and who's here, I mean, it's pretty much the top eight players in the world in both events. There's no such thing as an easy match. For me, I'm playing Nico, who I played first round at Roland Garros. Yeah, obviously I won there, have had a pretty good record against him recently. But nothing's guaranteed. As our first time playing singles on grass, it's going to be I think who adapts quickest, who comes out fast. Yeah, anything can happen. Q. How big a milestone do you think it is for a Grand Slam to be complete now, available in singles? There were a lot of years where it wasn't. JORDANNE WHILEY: Yeah, I think it is a big year for us. I mean, I think I speak for Gordon as well, Wimbledon is really special. We live in Great Britain. For us to be able to showcase our sport to the highest level in the singles event is just absolutely fantastic. I know for me this one's the big one. Like, I really want to do well here. I'm here to win Wimbledon singles. I'm sure Gordon is as well. GORDON REID: Yeah, I think it's huge. We've finally completed the set of our four Grand Slams singles and doubles. The slams are the biggest tournaments in the calendar. For us to be here, be involved in singles as well now, it's a huge milestone for our sport. It's another brilliant opportunity for us to raise the profile of wheelchair tennis. Every time we've come here in the past and played doubles, the support we've had from the British public, from the people here at Wimbledon, has been spectacular. I think it's going to draw even more with the singles event, as well. Q. With its profile suddenly elevated so well, the exposure you're going to get, what message would you want and hope that young people who might follow in your path to take from what you're doing? What would you like to get across to them of what you're doing? JORDANNE WHILEY: I think for me it's just sport completely changed my life from when I was a young girl. I was very insecure, didn't have many friends. I was born with my disability. I was in and out of hospital constantly. When I got into tennis, I became confident, like, I really believed in something, which made me believe in myself. I know it can really change your life. For me it's really important that young people do see that, especially for young disabled people, that there's something more out there. It's not just you in a wheelchair and your life has ended. Your life actually can just begin from that. GORDON REID: Yeah, I think there's kind of two things that would be really important to get out of this week. First one, like Jordanne said, if any kids or young people with disabilities get the opportunity to see us playing sport at a high level, then, like Jordanne said, they can be inspired to do a similar thing, know there's a lot in life you can achieve when you're in a chair. At the same time I think it's important that young people without disabilities can see that people in chairs are, like, real people, can be incredible athletes. Also hopefully people are learning a little bit more about every player's personality, as well. You realize that we are just normal human beings. There's still a little bit of stigma in some places about disability. As much as we can bring that barrier down, get that message across to young people, it's really important. Q. Talk a little bit about the campaign process to get this event introduced. How active were each of you in it? Did you ever have your own doubts that it might just be not feasible? JORDANNE WHILEY: I always knew one day it would happen. Wimbledon have always been so supportive of wheelchair tennis. I couldn't fault them at all. Grass is really difficult for us. I think, like I said before, now is the right time. I think if we would have done it a couple years ago, maybe we couldn't showcase our sport to the highest level. Now, like we've both said, watching wheelchair tennis singles is going to be exciting and it's going to be quality. I think now is completely the right time. GORDON REID: Agree (smiling). Q. Gordon, could you talk a little bit about how significant it is that Shingo isn't here playing in the draw to the competition. How does it change the dynamics, if at all? GORDON REID: Shingo has been the most dominant player in the men's division pretty much since I first started playing, which was 10, 11 years ago. I think this is the first slam I can remember where he's not played. So, you know, that kind of blows the draw wide open. Even though sort of the last three last major events, Roland Garros, Australia, singles masters at the end of last year, even though he didn't win those three events, he was still challenging to win those tournaments. Yeah, I mean, it does blow the draw wide open for us. It's a little bit strange not seeing his name in the draw. I think, if I'm honest, most of the other players would probably be thankful for that. Although nobody wishes anything bad, and hopefully he can recover from his injury, it does make that path to the trophy slightly easier. Q. Were there other sports earlier in your lives that you contemplated before tennis? Why did you end up choosing tennis? JORDANNE WHILEY: For me, I tried wheelchair basketball. Not really a team player, so that wasn't really the greatest sport for me. Then I went into racing, which I was very, very good at, but I didn't feel like it challenged me enough. When I started doing tennis camps when I was about five, six, I just absolutely fell in love with the sport. It just challenged me every day. At training, there was always different skills I could learn. As I got older and learnt the skills, now I'm in that bracket of medal potential and winning slams. But there's still so much I need to learn and I'm still challenging myself every day. GORDON REID: Yeah, I think my journey's a little bit different from Jordanne. I grew up able‑bodied. I played a lot of sport on my feet: football, tennis, a lot of athletics. For me, I became disabled when I was 12. I just wanted to get back involved in sport. Wheelchair tennis seemed kind of like the obvious choice. I played tennis before and had experience there. It was kind of quite easy to adapt. I play basketball now. I play wheelchair basketball on the side just for fun. I really enjoy that sport. It's good fun socially. It's good for my physical ability in the chair, as well. But, yeah, tennis is the one that I love really. Q. Do you have to make any modifications to your equipment for grass? Same as hard or a clay court? JORDANNE WHILEY: No, we have the same tires that we would have used for hard court. Some of us take some pressure out of the tires just so we get more surface area. Maybe that's something for the future, that we have different tires. But right now it's the same. GORDON REID: Yeah, I think some people make small changes, like the back wheel has to get raised a little bit depending on what surface you're on. Obviously your wheels will sink on the grass a little bit more. Otherwise, pretty similar. Like Jordanne said, there will be a lot more research done into new equipment, different tires, seeing now this is a big event to compete for in the singles. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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