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U.S. OPEN

August 30, 2016

Janko Tipsarevic

New York, NY, USA

J. TIPSAREVIC/S. Querrey

7-6, 6-7, 6-3, 6-3

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. What does a win like today tell you about where you are in your comeback?
JANKO TIPSAREVIC: I always celebrate a little bit more in tennis than I should. But, you know, two years and three months not competing kind of takes a lot from you (smiling).

Beating a very good player on a big court means a lot, a lot. I feel the challenger that I won prior to come to the US Open two weeks ago, even though it was on clay, it wasn't that strong, gave me confidence because I won it from quallies, and I won seven matches in a row. It's just nice to hear, Game, set, match, Tipsarevic.

When you have practice and wins behind you, hopefully this will help me go deep into the tournament.

Q. How do you rank Armstrong in terms of courts?
JANKO TIPSAREVIC: I like Armstrong. I don't think I ever lost a match on that court. I didn't play many, maybe five, six, but I don't think I ever lost a match on that court.

It's a good court. It's very wide, so if it's not completely full, it looks half empty. It's not fair. We have a similar situation with Belgrade Arena, which is like 20,000 people. It happens to us sometimes when we play Davis Cup and 10,000 people come to watch us, and it looks half empty, but there's a lot of people there.

So it's not really compact, so it kind of looks like it's half empty, but there's a lot of seats. It's a very, very big court.

Q. What is your favorite court?
JANKO TIPSAREVIC: Grandstand. It's a very weird court. All of the courts here at the US Open have a lot of space, left, right and behind. And Grandstand is quite small. It's kind of like if you remember the Memphis center court, it's really, really compact and small. A lot of players take time to get used to it. But I played a lot of matches on that court and I'm prepared from the very beginning.

Q. You have an active mind and a lot of interests. What has kept you focused on tennis these years that you've had all these injuries and struggles?
JANKO TIPSAREVIC: You know, at the beginning it was a little bit of a relief because in 2013 I was playing half injured. For the amount of painkillers I was taking in 2013, the enzymes of my liver went four times more as they should be. So I was really screwed up.

So in the beginning it was a little bit of a relief, saying, Okay, I'm going to take two, three months even off, skip to Australian Open, be hungry, come back. Since the first injury was a benign tumor, it was way more complicated than anybody thought. Even in the first six or seven or eight months, it wasn't that bad.

But then after I did the second surgery, and part of the recovery which didn't go as planned, which we are already a year and something into this, I was really struggling a lot mentally.

My family helped me. We had a beautiful little daughter at that time, so I had something to keep my mind busy. The worst part is at that point I couldn't even really practice because I was basically four months in an actual bed, like not being able to walk on crutches or wheelchair or whatever.

If you can practice or run or go to the gym, it's kind of easier. I even played tennis for a while sitting on a chair because I couldn't stand. I'm not crying you a river here; I'm just telling you how it actually was.

To answer your question shortly, I hated tennis at that point and I hated actually other sports. I couldn't watch other sports because I felt jealous of all the other athletes. They could run and do what they like, and I'm just sitting at home and watching TV.

I didn't think about tennis that much.

Q. In the match today, your defense was really outstanding. Do you feel that's a sign you're back from injury?
JANKO TIPSAREVIC: Thank you for noticing. This was the biggest, biggest change which I'm finally starting to feel in the last three or four weeks only. Getting my forehands, backhands back, even serve, I don't want to say piece of cake, but was quite easy.

Being mobile like I was in my prime was the toughest thing. A big part of that is my new fitness coach, Professor Dusch Covilic, who is a professor of biomechanics. We are working on very specific movements. He has helped me a lot to improve my defense. We have only been working for a month, so he hasn't had a lot of time.

I am injury-free for quite a while now, so I am finally starting to feel confidence in my body to defend in some of the more crucial moments of the match.

Q. When you were in your prime before you were injured, how do you think your game has changed from that point to now coming back?
JANKO TIPSAREVIC: I know this will sound funny, but I believe even when I was in my prime, I still didn't play my best tennis. When I was in my prime, I believe I served outstandingly well and I was very disciplined as a player, meaning I wasn't making stupid, unforced errors, I wasn't going for winners from the position that I shouldn't. I was trying not to be this kind of flashy player. I was a very disciplined player, with obviously weapons which I was using on the court.

I didn't feel that I used my aggressive tennis to the fullest potential. Hopefully I will be the old Janko next year at the Australian Open. I mean, only in the last three or four weeks I'm able to do stuff even on fitness without thinking what might happen with the knee or with the hip or with the foot or whatever. So this gives me a lot of confidence towards the end of the year where I'm highly motivated to hopefully make enough points not to be needing wild cards or protected rankings for next year.

Q. How much confidence did you take from winning the challenger in China a couple weeks ago?
JANKO TIPSAREVIC: A lot. I mean, I know the cutoff was really low. It was a big challenger, 125 plus eight, so winner was getting basically same amount of points as a final of the ATP.

But I got back playing few weeks before the French Open. I was playing well, but I was always - I know this sounds very bad, but I was really having bad draws. Even challengers, I was playing against like first round Jiri Vesely, who beat Djokovic in Monte-Carlo. Then I played, in a challenger, Carlos Berlocq, who was a top-30 player. On big events I end up playing first round Raonic, first round Cilic, first round Simon, guys who even if I'm playing well I don't like playing.

I feel like I needed a few of the wins to get the confidence back. I was even offered to play a wild card, I refused, I wanted to grind and win my way through quallies. So it really did help a lot.

Q. Has anyone's particular journey back from being away from tennis or injury or something else inspire you as you've tried to come back, any other player you can point to?
JANKO TIPSAREVIC: I had a very turbulent career, you know. Good junior, bad junior, great junior, good senior, bad senior, up and down, up and down. I never had a comeback. I was, up until 2013, generally a very healthy player.

I don't have a person who motivates me to say, I want to come back like Andre Agassi or something like that. I want to do this because of myself.

The only guy on tour who can actually really relate to the pain and suffering that I went through is Juan Martin del Potro. We ended up on a practice court at Wimbledon actually more talking than practicing about everything that's been. Both of us had three surgeries. For both of us it happened when we were playing great tennis. We were basically interrupting each other with what was going on through our minds in this, like, moments of depression and sadness, just not seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

Injuries are part of the sport. I know Rafa and all the other guys, they were injured a lot. To have this amount of injury for this significant period of time, he's the only player that can actually relate to what happened.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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