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THE CHAMPIONSHIPS WIMBLEDON

July 6, 2017

Mischa Zverev

Wimbledon, London, England

M. ZVEREV/M Kukushkin

6-1, 6-2, 2-6, 3-6, 6-4

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. Been a long day. Good result.
MISCHA ZVEREV: Yeah, it has been. Not perfect, but overall I would say a good result.

Q. Your match in singles ebbed and flowed quite a lot. Talk us through that.
MISCHA ZVEREV: Yeah, there were a few longer games end of second, beginning of third set. He won them. After that, I think he started reading my serve a little better. He put a lot more balls back in play, dipped it low at my feet.

I think I maybe got a little tired for a few minutes. That was enough to see myself a break down in the third, and fourth as well.

I felt like it was a blink of an eye and suddenly I'm in a fifth set. I think he started playing a lot better in the third and fourth.

Q. You have Roger Federer up next. How are you going to approach that match?
MISCHA ZVEREV: How am I going to approach that match? How do you approach matches against Federer at Wimbledon (smiling)?

I don't know. I think this time I will try to go all or nothing, maybe even more than before. I don't know. First of all, I'm going to try to recover, feel 100%, at least in the beginning of the match, then see how it goes.

Hopefully he's going to have not his best day, 'cause if he has one of those days, it's really tough to beat him. It's very tough, believe me. Then see how it goes.

Q. Can you talk about the relationship you have with your little brother.
MISCHA ZVEREV: I have a great relationship. You have to be more specific. We're 10 years apart, but a great relationship. We've been training together pretty much since day one. We travel together to all the tournaments. We spend a lot of time together. He helps me. I try to help him as much as I can.

Yeah, very different individuals, I would say. But still getting along well.

Q. Is he proud of you because after your injury you came back?
MISCHA ZVEREV: Yeah, I think so. He never say, Hey, I'm proud of you. But I think so. I'm proud of him. He's proud of me. We're happy when we can do well together.

But when one of us not really playing their best tennis, I feel like the other is always doing a very good job in supporting and building up the confidence. I would say he's proud of me, I think.

Q. Roger was asked about playing you. He said the last two matches, in Australia you were very aggressive on the return, and in Halle you stayed back. He said, I don't know what to expect.
MISCHA ZVEREV: That's a good thing, I guess, yeah.

Q. What are you going to do next?
MISCHA ZVEREV: I'm not going to tell him now, because he'll get ready for it. Maybe I'll stand even further back or closer to the baseline. We'll see.

It depends how he serves. I've never played on Court 1 or Centre Court. I assume it's going to be on one of those courts. See how the bounce is, see if I can read his serve well on grass or not. We'll see. I haven't decided myself yet.

Q. You obviously lost to him every time you faced him.
MISCHA ZVEREV: Yeah (smiling).

Q. How hard is it to shake that off?
MISCHA ZVEREV: It's not like you lose to someone ranked 300 or 400 in the world. If you lose to Roger, I feel like it's okay. It can happen. I remember times when I feel like he's beaten at least everyone at least once in a set. It can happen.

When he plays his best tennis, okay, you just walk around, pick up balls, hope that he's going to start missing at one point.

Right now I'm happy. I'm not playing him in the first round but the third round. That's already something. No matter what's going to happen overall, it's going to be a positive experience.

Q. He said today he felt a lot of nerves coming out and playing a second-round match. That made him struggle.
MISCHA ZVEREV: Today?

Q. Today.
MISCHA ZVEREV: Good, he's human (laughter).

Q. What can you do to make him feel nervous?
MISCHA ZVEREV: I don't know if it's something I can do or he can do to himself. I'll maybe give him a mean, angry look before the match. I have no idea.

We'll see what's going to happen. So far every time we saw each other, we've been joking around in the locker room or warmup area. He seemed pretty relaxed to me.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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