ROLAND GARROS

September 29, 2020

Sam Querrey

Press Conference

A. RUBLEV/S. Querrey

6-7, 6-7, 7-5, 6-4, 6-3

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. Tough luck in that one. This is not really about the match, but I was wondering if, what your attitude about a tiebreaker in a final set at a French Open should be.

SAM QUERREY: Generally speaking I don't like the tiebreaker final sets at slams. I like when you play it out. Some of the most fun matches I had, win or lose, were matches that I played out past the tiebreaker. So I lean toward no tiebreaker.

Q. Where do you think things got away from you? Was fatigue a factor at all, the conditions, and what if anything did Andrey do to tilt things in his favor after you were up in that third set?

SAM QUERREY: My back was a little tight toward the end, but it just, the cold didn't affect me. Kudos to him. He did a good job of just hanging around and making me serve it out. It's kind of, I thought I played great, I thought he did a good job too. I went 0-4 in serving out sets. I would like to think that will never happen to me again, it's probably never happened, someone with my serve, I can't let that happen. But it gets to your when you're serving out the match, but in your head you're like, all right, I'm 0-3 in serving out sets. So he made me play, did some good things. I threw in a double fault here and there and it just kind of slipped away there. I needed to close him out in that third set.

Q. So were you conscious of that? I'm sure these are the kinds of thoughts you're trying to banish from your head in realtime, but did that start to play on you as the match went on?

SAM QUERREY: Yeah, I mean, yes, you're conscious of it. If someone tells you they're not they're an idiot, I mean, you know. But, yes, you try and tell yourself -- most of the time I can't really recall, I would sit on the bench and go out and play like a return game and then a serve game. So I would kind of say All right, let's go out in this return game, go after some returns, hopefully some fall my way and you can maybe end this now. Whether that's the first set, second set or third set.

And then you start off serving, when I served for the match I hit a good drop shot he got to, I hit a poor lob that didn't get over his head. And then you miss a first serve and then you're kind of in a 50/50 point and, yeah, you think of it a little bit. You say, All right, I got to get this point because then you go down Love-30 and then you just feel the pressure. Love-30 is so different than 15-all, especially not only serving out a match but knowing that you've let a couple opportunities slip away in the first two sets -- even though I did a great job of bouncing back and winning the breakers, you know you could have maybe ended those sets earlier.

Q. The crazy thing is, he seemed to really be bothered by the weather and the conditions and you seemed to be so calm. It was like it felt for the most of those first three sets like you were weathering the storm literally and figuratively a lot better. I was wondering if you sensed that also.

SAM QUERREY: I did, but then Russians, they, look, sometimes that's just the case. I broke him, I held and then I broke him. He fired a ball in the ground. And then I held again for 3-0. And the next game he held and after he held my wife and seven month old were just walking to the stands and my son went Waah, and I like Andrey a lot, he looked up and gave a death stare like, you better get that thing out of here right now, like I'm on edge. But, you know, he's fiery, that's what he is and that's what makes him good. And after the match he couldn't have been cooler, like, you know, you could see how much it meant for him to come back and kind of told me, hey, I'm sorry to me.

And he's a great guy but a fiery guy and a lot of times Russians if you look at them over the years that's kind of their personality.

Q. Curious, after a match like that, I would imagine maybe you wished today were best-of-three sets, but I'm curious what your feeling is about the idea of playing best of five or best of three at Grand Slam tournaments.

SAM QUERREY: I don't feel strongly either way. I think I would -- I mean I think I would like best of three if you knew maybe all the guys were committed to playing more doubles and then you could have an amazing doubles draw, but I think I would still like three out of five. I like three out of five. I think without three out of five we would have not had, on the men's side, some of these amazing finals that we have had over the years and the rivalries between Federer and Nadal and Federer/Djokovic, Djokovic/Nadal wouldn't have been great as they are with two out of three sets.

So probably two out of three sets would benefit me, but I think if I would really think about it, I like the three out of five.

Q. Since you mentioned your seven month old, I have a bubble question for you. Do you have any more trepidation traveling with such a small child in these times and can you clarify the bubble, are you guys, is it your awareness that all the players are on certain levels of the hotel and like, you know, an airline pilot from the U.S. that's staying there would be on a different floor from you guys or what's your understanding of the arrangement?

SAM QUERREY: It's not a bubble or my understanding is like a controlled environment because there's others there. I don't know your question for the floors. As far as I know on my floor I've only seen players and coaches. I can't speak for the other floors.

As far as travel with my son, no, I'm comfortable with it, my wife's comfortable with it. It's not fun being in the bubble, you're here in Paris but you're not in Paris, you're at the courts and you're in your small European hotel room with a ton of bags.

So to make like a true bubble I feel like whether it's the US Open or this, I feel like you would need a hotel with 10,000 rooms because then you would need the staff of everyone, every employee, every worker, anyone that's on site coming in contact with a player whether a chef or whatever, cleaning crew, you need the MGM Grand. So it's actually impossible I think to make a true 100 percent bubble where no one can come in and out. Having said that they're doing a great job here, they did a great job at the US Open.

Q. To follow-up, you said you would prefer a best of three perhaps, you didn't say prefer, but that it would work in your favor in some ways and it would seem to me a tie breaker would also work in your favor with a big serve and all that. So I'm curious, would you elaborate on why you think it's good to have a tie breaker in a fifth set or, I'm sorry, why it's good to play a fifth set here?

SAM QUERREY: Not only here, I think they're all, I think it's great that they all, I think they all should be played out. I think those are the, I mean I kind of said earlier, those are the matches that I remember most, those ones that go past 6-all.

They're fun in a way, they're memorable, win or lose, and those are kind of the matches you always seem to talk about, I'm still playing and I still talk about them, when you're done you talk about them.

And that's the beauty of Grand Slam tennis, they're three out of five, in order to get through them it's, it's harder and that's what makes Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, Murray, Wawrinka so good is that they really just dominated those majors over the last 15 years.

So personally at Wimbledon I think we overreacted to two John Isner matches, but I don't know if they're ever going to go back, but I like playing it out and seeing what happens.

Q. What was your toughest five-setter with, overtime five-setter in your memory?

SAM QUERREY: It was at Wimbledon, I had an, I think I had a loss to Cilic who got into the 20s, maybe 24-22. Had a couple 18-16s and another 20-18. Won some, loss some and they're just amazing matches to be a part of.

Q. Wanted to follow-up on the bubble topic. Are you, what rules are governing your time at Roland Garros on site? Were you allowed to be there on days when you weren't playing matches in order to practice or whatever else or are you only supposed to be there on the days you actually are competing?

SAM QUERREY: You can come here any day. I mean it's impossible and I think from, what I heard, you're not supposed to be on days you're not competing, but if you want to get a racket strung or turn in your laundry or do things like that, it's all here.

So it's basically impossible not to come here on days you're not playing. But I think everyone, look, everyone's responsible and on days that I wasn't playing when I -- yesterday, I came here real quick, went in the locker room, turned in my laundry, quickly got in a car, went to the practice site, came back, showered, grabbed a quick bite and left. No one's lingering around, no coaches in the locker room, so if that is a rule it's not really enforced and it would be too difficult to enforce that because you do need to come over to the main site every day.