THE STELLA ARTOIS CHAMPIONSHIPS

June 7, 2005

Jamie Delgado

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

JAMIE DELGADO: Yeah, very pleased. I thought I played, you know, a good, solid match. Came in at the right times. I thought my balance of attacking and coming to the net was perfect today. So, yeah.

JAMIE DELGADO: Yeah, I mean, I heard that he might be -- yeah, struggle from that point of view. But then I heard he won Junior Wimbledon last year, so I didn't really know what to make of it too much. But, yeah, I tried to rush him a bit and make him move. Bit of slicing. I thought he struggled a bit with that a little bit.

JAMIE DELGADO: I think so, yeah. The balls are heavy. And to come in, I think you need, you know, a pretty big serve or a pretty good approach shot to feel confident. Yeah, I mean, I thought the ball was sitting there a little bit, yeah.

JAMIE DELGADO: For the... (laughing)?

JAMIE DELGADO: Well, Thursday night, got a call from Petch about 6ish, something like that. And from what I understood, there was four of us and there was one wildcard available, but he couldn't decide on who was gonna get it. So he gave us the opportunity to play it out on the Friday. Then myself and Arv were still in the doubles, so we had to play that at Surbiton. I think they arranged the order of play so we could play the first semifinal, if you like, of the playoff, which I beat Bogo in. Then it started raining, then we were still in the doubles. You know, the time started running out because I think they needed to know here by 8, 9 o'clock who the wildcard was. So we were running out of time to play. So then in the changing rooms at Surbiton, it was me, Arvind, Petch. And, you know, after sort of 10, 15 minutes deciding whether we were going to play indoors or a couple of tiebreaks or a set, we just thought, "Just spin the coin."

JAMIE DELGADO: Yeah, because we still had doubles to play at that stage. I think they only had the court for a certain amount of time.

JAMIE DELGADO: Arv called heads. Petch just flipped it. It went on the middle of the ground. We were both like...

JAMIE DELGADO: Arv beat Hilton in the morning, yeah. I beat Bogdanovic. And we were due to play, yeah. And that was it.

JAMIE DELGADO: Yeah, so I was happy with that, yeah. There was a bit of tension in the room when the spin went up, but...

JAMIE DELGADO: Yeah, would be, yeah. Yep.

JAMIE DELGADO: I've been playing challengers. I've made a few semifinals. I've played in the challengers, I've been quite solid in those. You know, I've played some good stuff at times this year.

JAMIE DELGADO: Yeah, no, I've just got, yeah, just whatever. What, my clothes I'm wearing, you mean?

JAMIE DELGADO: Yeah, yeah, racquets, yeah. Yonex have been very good to me. Still have given me, you know, lots of stuff. But clothes, no (smiling).

JAMIE DELGADO: I do, yeah. I mean, I still, you know, obviously haven't got loads of years left, but I still have, you know, some goals that I want to get to and think I can get to. You know, that drives me. Yeah, I mean, I love playing, so... And, you know, like another chance tomorrow against Gasquet, you know. I look forward to those sort of matches.

JAMIE DELGADO: No.

JAMIE DELGADO: From what I've seen on -- you know, I've seen him most of the time on TV, to be honest. But he looks pretty good to me, on clay. I mean, I saw him -- the only match I saw him play was when he beat Federer, I think, and he played pretty well there, I thought (smiling). But I haven't seen him much to be honest.

JAMIE DELGADO: Well, so far my highest ranking has been 118. I want to get better than that and, you know, get in the Top 100. I think things will -- I think when you get there, things can change. I can, you know -- I've seen other older players still achieve a lot, and I don't see why that can't be me.

JAMIE DELGADO: What do you mean? Do I now?

JAMIE DELGADO: I mean, obviously, it's noticeable that the attention is on other players, which is understandable, and they're doing well. Yeah, but I think from my point of view, you get a bit older and I think you take the -- you possibly relax a bit more and just play, you know.

JAMIE DELGADO: I mean, I've had my moments where you think, you know, you're a bit down and stuff. But I don't think I can ever say I really thought about stopping, you know, totally. I mean, I've been -- had my tough moments, that's for sure. But, you know, I think maybe sometimes, you know, when you've just lost a match or something, you think, "Oh, I've had enough." But when you sort of calm down after a day or something, I haven't had that thought over a period of time.

JAMIE DELGADO: I don't really know, to be honest. I don't know, I mean, what I want to do, you know (laughing). I mean, I love tennis. I mean, the chances are I'll probably do something with that. But as regards to how much traveling and all that sort of stuff, I don't know.

JAMIE DELGADO: I never heard that word before (smiling). That's why I got a nice shaved head, I was ducking and ducking, ducking the bullets.

JAMIE DELGADO: No, that was, what, a month ago?

JAMIE DELGADO: Well, I woke up in the morning, on the Friday morning, and went to the club. It was like a bit of panic there. The referee said, Look - he sort of got a few players together, and I was one of them - he said, I don't know if you've heard, but the prison's been -- the local prison or whatever's been -- they're all over the place. To be honest, the night before I had a bad night's sleep. I heard lots of shooting, but I didn't know then what was happening. Then it sort of made sense. Then stayed at the club the whole day. We were just getting news. You could hear it, you know, just down the road. Yeah, to be honest, it was pretty scary at times.

JAMIE DELGADO: Yeah. But, I mean, yeah, there were people all around the club, but from what I understood we were in the new part of the town and it was mostly happening in the old part of town, which was - I don't know - a mile away or whatever it was. There were, I mean, but I would like more (laughing).

JAMIE DELGADO: British Embassy in Tashkent. I think the LTA were in constant contact with them. In the end we were about five hours away from there. They sent a couple of big cars that came to pick us up and drove us out the next morning.

JAMIE DELGADO: Yeah, we slept at the club. We slept on the sofa at the club. And, you know, all of us, with our phones, sort of, you know, speaking to people back home of what was happening. No, I mean, on the Friday night, sort of 10 or 11 o'clock, I remember I was pretty nervous. You know, we heard the things were spreading and, you know, I was thinking, "Well, why can't it spread a bit more and they can just turn up at this club?" I think people were shooting aimlessly, from what we understood. So we were pretty happy to get out of there. I think it was safer to leave the next morning. The people were -- the British Embassy people arrived at like one in the morning, and they said, We think it's safer to leave at 10 - I think it was 9 or 10 o'clock in the morning, in daylight. We got the sort of route out of the town that they felt was safe, so that's what they did.

JAMIE DELGADO: Yep, Trottman, Bloomfield. Chinky (phonetic spelling) wasn't there. Dave Sherwood was there. Dan Kiernan. Yeah, so then there was a couple of other foreign players who were there as well. I don't know what they would have done. I mean, the British Embassy were excellent for us. So they came in our cars. But if we hadn't sorted it out, I don't know what they would have done.

JAMIE DELGADO: I mean, I'm older than him. But because he was obviously the LTA coach, he was more in contact with what was going on. But I don't know about that, no (laughing). I think we were making people more nervous.

JAMIE DELGADO: I actually was the only -- my phone, there was a problem with my phone those couple days. Everyone else's phone was working. I was sort of sending text to brothers and stuff. But my parents were the only ones that hadn't heard from me. So when we got to Tashkent and we were having dinner at the Sheraton, one of the cooks came in and said, One of your parents is, you know, is panicking, hasn't heard from you yet. I was like, "That's mine, you know," I hadn't spoken to them. So I gave them a call from there because my phone was working when I got there. But, yeah, they were obviously panicking.

JAMIE DELGADO: No, I mean, it's a rough place as it is. But when that starts happening, it's like, "What am I doing here?"

JAMIE DELGADO: Yeah, no, it does, to be honest (laughing). I mean, I'd love to do well in tennis. I don't want to sacrifice my life, yeah, literally, you know.

JAMIE DELGADO: Andijan.

JAMIE DELGADO: Yeah, obviously, you see the tournaments going on in all these nice places. Yeah, you obviously want to be there. But, I mean, you know, when you're in that place, obviously you're thinking more you just want to stay alive rather than play Monte-Carlo (laughing).

JAMIE DELGADO: No, no (smiling).

JAMIE DELGADO: I have been home. Well, the day I got back, I actually went to Tenerife for a few days.

JAMIE DELGADO: Yeah, and then I came back and have been here since that.

JAMIE DELGADO: Yeah, I played Surbiton last week and played at Oxford the week before to get some practice on the grass.

JAMIE DELGADO: I'm playing the Wimbledon playoff tomorrow as well. Tomorrow afternoon, I think. I think I'm going to be first match on here, apparently, and then go over there.

JAMIE DELGADO: At Raynes Park.

JAMIE DELGADO: Yeah.

JAMIE DELGADO: I play Matthew Smith.

JAMIE DELGADO: Yeah, I think it's fair to, you know, have some rules that people know what the rankings they've got to get to. You know, from my point of view, I've still got an opportunity to get in. So, you know, obviously, I think it would be better if there wasn't two tournaments going on at the same time. But that's the way it goes, yeah.

JAMIE DELGADO: At the playoff thing?

JAMIE DELGADO: No, more, I think.

JAMIE DELGADO: Yeah. I think I'm in the last 16 at the minute, and I've possibly got to win it, I think. I think there's only one -- maybe only one spot available.

JAMIE DELGADO: There's definitely a winner, and then maybe they'll give one to someone else.

JAMIE DELGADO: (Laughing).

JAMIE DELGADO: Yeah, spin that one as well, yeah.

JAMIE DELGADO: I'm playing tomorrow first match on, I think.

JAMIE DELGADO: That will be tomorrow. They might put me on last match on there or something.

JAMIE DELGADO: Both of them?

JAMIE DELGADO: Next day with the same thing.

JAMIE DELGADO: Well, yeah. Hopefully. If there is, it will be going well.

JAMIE DELGADO: I feel good to be honest, yeah.

JAMIE DELGADO: I'm aware that everyone thinks he -- I mean, he already is a good player, and everyone thinks he's going to be even better. But, you know, I still didn't think I couldn't win, you know. Yeah, he's obviously done well and he probably will do very well, but I didn't fear him in any way, no.