US OPEN

September 8, 2020

Borna Coric

Press Conference

A. ZVEREV/B. Coric

1-6, 7-6, 7-6, 6-3

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. You had a very good record against him. I wondered what do you think he did better this time and perhaps what do you think you did worse that enabled him to win this one?

BORNA CORIC: That's tough to say. Last time we played it was in Halle when I think he was injured. His hamstring was not good, I think.

But in general I think he just improved his serve a lot. He's serving really huge.

Yeah, I mean, it was very good match, very good competing, as well. In the third and fourth sets, I just felt like he also raised his level by a milestone.

He was playing some really, really good tennis, because I thought I was not playing actually bad. I just thought he was too good in the third and in the fourth sets. Yeah, that's about it.

Q. Did you expect Sascha to hit his second serve as hard as he did most of the times during your match?

BORNA CORIC: I mean, yeah, I did. You know, I was watching all of his matches in this tournament I think or almost all of them, and I saw that sometimes he hits his second serve as a first serve.

Yeah, I was expecting that, to be honest. Today he was just hitting it really big, as well. Didn't make any double faults. Only in the first set I think he made maybe four or five. Then towards the end he didn't really make many.

So, yeah, he was serving really big today.

Q. Given how there is no kind of big player like Novak Djokovic anymore, did this match feel different in any way knowing kind of how much was on the line or things like that?

BORNA CORIC: No, not to me. I mean, you know, it's a tennis match at the end of the day. I was just trying to focus during the match, you know.

Regardless in the next round if I'm gonna play Novak, if I'm gonna play, I don't know, Shapovalov or whoever, I was not really focused about that, because I knew I have a very tough round now and I knew it's not gonna be easy.

No, I wouldn't say it's changed much in my perspective, no.

Q. I'd like to know if having, in a way, got a bonus with the match you deserved to win with Tsitsipas, were you considering when you were up one set and 6-5, 15-30 in the second set that you had a great, great chance in that moment to reach the semifinals or not?

BORNA CORIC: I did. Of course I also had the same feeling, I had set and 4-2, right, and 4-3, I was serving for it, I had 40-15, and, yeah, I felt like I was in charge of the match. I saw he was struggling, not playing his best tennis. At the same time, I was playing some great tennis.

So I thought I'm not close to, not maybe super close to the finish line, but I felt like I'm close to maybe closing out that second set.

Yeah, I mean, again, that's the tennis. Sometimes you just lose. Against Tsitsipas I managed to come back, and today, you know, I lost some of my opportunities. That's tennis and that's life, I think. I think it's quite normal.

Again, Sascha played I think really, really good in the most important points. Also serving huge, really, really serving huge, because I was returning very good today. I felt like I was returning good, but I couldn't make a lot of damage.

So again, that's the tennis. That's the life. You know, sometimes you lose; sometimes you win.

Four days ago I won. Today I had my chances which I didn't take. That's it.

Q. If you regret a little bit some errors, mistakes that you made from the middle of the court? In my opinion, you were playing very well from the baseline. But when the ball was shorter, sometimes you were in nobody's land and you didn't know exactly what to do. Do you regret those?

BORNA CORIC: I don't regret, because my game plan was to play very aggressive. When you play aggressive you're going to make some mistakes.

Obviously I did make a little bit more than what I should have missed. I missed a couple of them, I agree, especially the ones in the fourth set on Love-40, I missed two easy balls, I think.

So, yeah, I mean, it's also tough against Sascha. He's defending really good and he has great passing shots, so it's tough when to go forwards and when not to go, so it's a bit tricky.