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U.S. OPEN

September 4, 2016

Illya Marchenko

New York, NY, USA

I. MARCHENKO/N. Kyrgios

4-6, 6-4, 6-1 (ret.)

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. You've been playing on tour for a long time. Your first third round, first fourth round. How does it feel to have all this coming at once?
ILLYA MARCHENKO: Well, I've been improving last two years with my new coach. Yeah, my injuries were okay. I'm not saying that I'm 100% fit during the whole season, but most of the season I can play full.

Obviously, yeah, I'm improving month by month. I'm really happy with that improvement, that my game is improving and reaching a high level.

Yeah, well, I cannot say that I'm not happy with this result because I'm happy. It's a big opportunity for me next round.

Q. You looked surprised when they said round of 16 on court.
ILLYA MARCHENKO: Yeah, I was not thinking about it. When you see it's only 16 guys left and you realize you're among the top 16 players right now. With my ranking, it's quite an achievement, I think.

Q. When did you notice that Nick was hurting?
ILLYA MARCHENKO: I think start of the third set. But, you know, you never know if the guy's just irritated or it's really bothering him. So I tried to stay focused.

I lost a couple matches when the guy was like kind of thinking and then started to play. Yeah, I was trying to play same game I played before maybe to make him move a little bit more. And, yeah, of course, nobody wants to win this way, but I'm still happy to be in next round.

Q. You could tell he had trouble moving?
ILLYA MARCHENKO: Yeah, he stopped to move for the balls. But, yeah, as I said, you don't know if the guy just doesn't want to play or he's really struggling with injuries.

Obviously now I understand that it was injury because nobody going to withdraw from Grand Slam without an injury.

Q. Not that you had much time to look ahead but you have Wawrinka coming up now. What do you think?
ILLYA MARCHENKO: Well, I played him this year already. He killed me completely, outplayed me in everything. But, yeah, it wasn't my best match though. Obviously against him, what can you expect?

I mean, I'm going to fight as hard as I can and hope that I will have some chances and believe in myself till the end.

Yeah, Evans had a really good fight today against him. He showed me that you can play against him at this tournament well. We can discuss with my coach about tactics and stuff. Just another match and another opportunity for me.

Q. You just became the second-best Ukrainian player. Dolgopolov made a quarterfinal. Medvedev's best result of runner-up at French Open. Do you have any hero who you looked up to in your career?
ILLYA MARCHENKO: Well, my hero was Lleyton Hewitt when I was growing up. I liked the way he was fighting. I liked the way he was showing emotions on court. Later on when I started to play, I saw him practicing and stuff. I saw really a great commitment, great work ethic.

So, yeah, he's finished right now. Had a chance to play against him, but I lost round before. But still he was one of the guys who was my hero.

Then, of course, I was following the guys like Federer, obviously, now Djokovic and Rafa. I was watching. Not put them as heroes, but trying to learn something from them. Yeah, that's about it.

Andrei Medvedev, I haven't seen him playing too much, maybe that final.

Q. You were 12 years old.
ILLYA MARCHENKO: Yeah, I was young. I actually liked Agassi more at that time. I was not kind of supporting Medvedev. Now obviously I would.

I don't know if you know from next week, I going to be No. 1 in Ukraine. It's some achievement for me. I'm really happy about that. Yeah, I hope to get some confidence from that as well.

Q. How is the public expectation in Ukraine? Tennis?
ILLYA MARCHENKO: It's not really popular, I would say. I think today I went on a practice. It was full stands. Obviously they came not for me. It was Djokovic next court (laughter). I mean, public for his practice, I think it was more people than on our Davis Cup in Kiev we played couple months ago.

It's not really on TV. I mean, as you know, we have a lot of other problems. It's not too much into sport right now.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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