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ROGERS CUPJuly 26, 2016Philip BesterAdil ShamasdinToronto, Ontario, Canada BESTER-SHAMASDIN/Djokovic-Zimonjic 7-5, 4-6, 10-2 THE MODERATOR: Questions, please. Q. Just wondering, even though it was doubles, what was it like when you saw your draw and you're playing the No. 1 player in the world and having him on the other side of the court? PHILIP BESTER: Yeah, I mean, obviously it's an exciting matchup, kind of like a popcorn match. But at the end of the day, you know, putting aside the excitement, I was also excited to go out there with Adil and I knew that we had enough skill and enough game to beat these guys. That's what happened today, so I couldn't be more happier. Q. In the second set you double-faulted and then double-faulted again to lose the second set and send it to a tiebreak in the third. But then you guys came out really strong and pretty much dominated the third set there. How kind of did you rebound from maybe a deflating way to end the second? PHILIP BESTER: Well, first off I wanted to keep things interesting for the crowd. (Laughter.) You know what? That's just sport. That's tennis. That kind of stuff happens. Not just to me. It happens to everybody. As soon as we went to the changeover, the most important thing for me personally was to have a short memory about it and also to communicate with Adil that I was ready to move on to the tiebreaker. Basically pretty much the only thing I said to him when we got up for the tiebreaker is, I'm ready to -- you know, I'm ready to play to win here. That's just sport. That kind of stuff happens and you learn how to deal with it. Q. What's the secret to your partnership? ADIL SHAMASDIN: I don't think there is any secret, really. You know, we have played a few times before. Usually at this tournament, actually. You know, we spoke last night about some of the stuff that, you know, that was -- yeah, every time we have lost our matches the previous times, you know, we felt the same in the locker room. And, you know, this time coming into it, you know, Phil sent me a message saying, Hey, man, let's just leave it out there and play within ourselves. We play our game, you know. I think that kind of made me comfortable because he was on kind of the same kind of mindset that I was in. You know, so I think from that message last night from when we talked, it gave me a reassurance that, you know, like we're here and we're going to do our thing. I obviously enjoy that. Q. I think for both of you this was your first Rogers Cup win, both as a team and individually and with other partners. Is it kind of nice to have that victory at your home tournament, finally get that one? PHILIP BESTER: Yeah. Obviously I think it means a lot to both of us. It's always hard to play at home. You know, you want to do well here. For Adil, being literally in his backyard, I think it's extra special to him. You know, we're not just here to win one match and make some headlines that we beat a former No. 1 doubles and the current singles No. 1 in the world. I don't know about him. I plan on keeping winning. Yeah. I think it's nice to get that monkey off the back, winning here at home. Q. Have either of you played against Novak in singles or doubles before? What is the difference between him as a singles player and as a doubles player? ADIL SHAMASDIN: I have not played against him, singles or doubles. But I have played against, you know, other top-ranked singles guys. You know, singles is different than doubles. There is going to be certain things that he does very well in singles but doesn't really necessarily transfer on to the doubles court. You know, being quick at the net I thought we did a pretty good job of kind of cleaning each other -- when he has a good serve, to kind of pick it off. Same with me. He was able to pick a couple off. But I felt like he felt a little bit slow at the net. So I think we kind of targeted that a little bit early. Obviously, you know, returning he's only hitting like one area. We kind of tried to move it around. I thought we served really well to him, Novak, that is. And the same with Nenad. I thought we served really smart and tried to keep it away from their strengths, really. Q. Do you feel a higher level generally just the way he hits the ball and does certain things when you're on a court with a guy like Djokovic? PHILIP BESTER: You know what? Personally, from my end, I practiced with him last year in Montreal. And, yeah, he does hit the ball very clean. Today when we were playing, I don't know. I personally, for me, it was just another tennis player on the other side of the net, you know, between the same line dimensions as any other tennis court. Yes, obviously he's got incredible skill and he does hit the ball clean. However, doubles is a different animal than singles. I think that, you know, I wasn't overwhelmed by the fact that, you know, he was gonna -- I didn't feel like I had to personally do more on my end, you know, just because it was Novak on the other side, with all due respect obviously to how good he is as a player. ADIL SHAMASDIN: Same sort of thing. I think going into a match like this we are focused on what we are doing on our end, and we are not really kind of worried about what they're going to do. Yeah, they are going to have some great shots. He hit some good shots, he hit some bad shots, just like everybody else. So I think going into this match and obviously going to our next matches, if we focus on what we need to do, I think we will continue to do well. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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