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WESTERN & SOUTHERN OPEN

August 18, 2018

David Goffin

Cincinnati, Ohio

R. FEDERER/D. Goffin

7-6, 1-1 [Ret.]

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. I wish you good health going forward. Nice run to the semis. Obviously not 100% today, but you still have to probably feel pretty good even at your level that he wasn't able to break you?
DAVID GOFFIN: Yeah, I know, but didn't make sense to continue. I was serving 100 miles per hour first serve, and then, yeah, I felt my arm and my shoulder. And, yeah, after I lost the first set, I had to serve two more sets to win the match, so it didn't make sense to continue.

But I was feeling great. I was moving well. I was feeling my forehand really well. So on my baseline I was feeling good.

Had good sensation, but for the serve, one week from the US Open is too, yeah, doesn't make sense.

Q. Do you think you would have continued if you had won the first-set breaker at that point?
DAVID GOFFIN: I don't know. You know, you feel your shoulder, you're a little bit more relaxed because you know that you don't have maybe a good chance to win the match, so maybe that's why it was feeling more relaxed than other matches against Roger.

But I don't know. I knew that he was maybe to feel the pace of my serve maybe. You know, it was different kind of serve because I was serving differently because of the speed of my ball, and it would have been tough to win, for sure.

Q. You're a very popular player. You have had some difficult luck, I think, with injuries. But has that given you time to think about more how you want to improve your game or to maybe study the other players? Does this sort of help you in the long run to have, you know, this time away where you have injuries and have to recover?
DAVID GOFFIN: No, I think, you know, I have never had injuries. I just had accident the last four, five years. I have never had injuries and only my ankle at the French Open and the ball in my eye. So this is the first time I pull out, withdraw from a tournament.

But, no, when I had time, when I was injured this year, I just tried to come back as soon as I can, to work hard to come back. Normally I don't watch tennis when I'm injured. So I don't think -- I think about something else. I do something different. And then as soon as I come back, I try to do what I want and to be focused on what I have to do, and that's it. I'm not focused specifically on other players or tactics.

Q. Is it the arm or the shoulder or both? Was this an injury that you felt overnight and then you had treatment before you came to the match and were hoping to be able to play through it, or was it something that came on during the match and you began to feel some pain?
DAVID GOFFIN: No, it was -- I feel it for many days, but yesterday at the end of the second match, you know, I served two matches, and then in the end against Delpo, it started to feel really my arm, and then it's coming from the shoulder into the elbow.

So I think it's -- yeah, it was two matches, today, and I had treatment yesterday and treatment this morning, and during the warmup I felt like I couldn't serve 100%, so I started the match and then I was -- I just wanted to see how it goes. And I didn't lose my serve today, but I guess it was a little bit too dangerous because I start to feel a little bit more, so I decided to stop.

Q. Are you concerned at all about US Open? Do you think this is going to affect you long term or something that will just go away with...
DAVID GOFFIN: I don't know. I don't think so. But we will see with my staff, with my doctor, my physio. I see them tomorrow. We will see the physio here from the ATP tonight, and then we see tomorrow if I have to do more exams. We will see, but I think it was a tough week also, and I need to rest my arm and rest my shoulder a little bit.

There is a lot of positives in this week, and I hope I'm going to use this week to play a good US Open, but, yeah, now the priority is to be 100% for next week.

Q. On Novak's on-court interview he waved off immediately the question of going straight to competing against Roger, saying, out of respect to you, he felt that was the right thing to do. Obviously you want to be known well for your game, but how important to you is it also to be respected by your peers?
DAVID GOFFIN: Yeah, that's really kind from him. You know, of course Roger is the best player of all the time, and he won everything, like, you know, for sure. That's the beauty of our sport. Every day it can happen, something big. And we are working every day for that, to beat players like Roger or Djokovic or Rafa like I did in the past.

I know everything can happen every day, and that's great that he say that, because we never know. Of course Roger is always the favorite in almost every match of the year, but yeah, we just fighting and it's fine, good to see that people respect me.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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