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SONY ERICSSON OPENMarch 26, 2007Amer DelicKEY BISCAYNE, FLORIDA THE MODERATOR: Today was Amer's first win in three tries against a Top 10 player. Q. How gratifying was this? AMER DELIC: This was great. Especially playing in front of my family here. My dad is down here, and a lot of the friends that I've met throughout the years here because, I used to train here with the USTA, Key Biscayne Center, and friends from college that stayed here. So I would stay with them, just crashed with them while I was practicing here. So it's great to play in front of them and actually win. Q. When you woke up this morning did you visualize this? AMER DELIC: My coach in college, Craig Tiley, he used to -- before our matches, big matches or whatever, we used to -- before we'd go to sleep, he would tell us, All right, for like 15 minutes just kind of go through the match and just visualize the worst possible scenario and then just play through it. Then the next day if you were faced with it you would have already been through it. Q. Did you do that? AMER DELIC: I did. I did it last night just before. I was thinking -- the last few times that I did play in a bigger stadium I came out there just flat. I mean, even today, I mean, first few games, I went out there in the stadium, and even though I hit there before and everything, it just seemed like I was out there on a football field. Just seemed like I would never be able to put the ball away, because I know how Nikolay is fast and everything. But then I settled down a little bit, and my serve kind of held me in the match. And then I was able to prevail in the end. Q. What's the worst possible scenario that you visualized last night? AMER DELIC: Well, losing and just looking bad out there (laughing). But it was just -- I just wanted -- I mean, losing happens. I mean, of course, he's No. 4 in the world and I was, whatever, 89 before this week, so I believe a lot of the people in the stadium were thinking that of course he was going to win. But I just went out there and I said to myself, I mean, just swing for the fences. See what happens. As I said, it helped me out. Q. You had a really good victory against Acasuso in the previous round. That must have given you a lot of confidence coming into this match. AMER DELIC: Yeah, it definitely helped out. Acasuso is also a good player, an accomplished player, and I was able to just play well from the beginning, and again, use my weapons and just kind of took time away from him. That's kind of the same thing I tried to do today after the first few games of the match. First few games, like I said, seemed like there was so much room behind the court. Every time I would miss a shot I would look down and it would seem like I was nine feet from the baseline. So finally I was able to adjust a little bit and it helped me out, but yeah, the win definitely yesterday helped. Q. There are so few guys in this country who have chosen to go to college, have talked about how they feel like they started the tour behind the 8 ball and haven't gotten enough support from the Federation and/or that in the end it kind of retarded their growth. Do you regret your decision at all? And have you gotten enough support from the USTA since you turned pro? AMER DELIC: No, I definitely -- I was one of those guys that went to college, and I was fortunate enough that actually I did get the help from the USTA. But I think when I turned pro, it was October of '03, after I won the NCAAs, and I was already 21, and I was in a group with Brian Baker who was 17, 18. They treated us the same for like the first year or year and a half or so. But then after that I was already maturing, and at that time like Nadal was coming up, and here he is 17 and I'm already way behind and I'm nowhere. So then -- but as I said, I've been fortunate enough the USTA has treated me fine. For the first few years I got some help from them, but then I decided to go my own way and just decided to work out on my own, and it's been going well so far. Q. Again, just the years in college, do you feel like you would be further ahead had you not gone to college? AMER DELIC: See, I wasn't -- I actually had a chance that year, whatever, I was 17, to possibly turn pro also, but I didn't have the financial support. But that wasn't even the biggest issue. The biggest issue was that I was not mature enough to handle all this. Because if tennis or professional tennis was just about hitting tennis balls there would be a lot of players that are better than me. But it's not. There's so much outside the tennis court that you have to learn to deal with, and going to college has helped me mature and try to work with those things. The three years in college were like a steppingstone for me. It has helped me mature and kind of -- once I started playing professional, it was -- I did not struggle as some of the younger guys that never really went to college. I feel it has helped me. Q. How often do you go back to Bosnia? AMER DELIC: Last time I was back -- I was back in Croatia last year. I have some family there, too. But back in Bosnia, it was November of '04. Q. How do you get back in touch of your roots when you go back there? AMER DELIC: How do I get back in touch? Have you guys heard of Skype (laughing)? Actually we stay in touch with my family a lot. Fortunately, as I said, Skype is one of the great deals where you're able to actually just conference, really, with the rest of my family, and it's been great. But my parents, they try to go back, and my sister tries to go back once in a while. But I haven't had really the time. I would love to go back, but it's just -- short on time to do it. Q. How old were you when you came here? AMER DELIC: I was 13, about to turn 14. It was April of '96. Q. You lived in Jacksonville? AMER DELIC: Live in Jacksonville still. Q. And your parents? AMER DELIC: My parents still live there. Q. Where did you go to high school? AMER DELIC: Wolfson High School. Q. What is the actual difference tennis-wise between college and here? AMER DELIC: The difference? The stage that you play on, the different pressures that you have. Actually, playing here you're trying to survive and make some money. Until now I was playing mostly challengers and trying to cover the expenses, hotel, rental cars, whatnot. In college that was one thing you did not have to worry about, just going out there and trying to get a win for the team and get a win for yourself. But as far as the competition, it's totally different. I mean, in college I was able to kind of slack off once in a while and still get the W just because of maybe the talent or whatever. But here, I mean, everybody is good. The depth in men's tennis is just unbelievable. There are a lot of top players that will tell you about it, too. It's amazing. You have to come in day in, day out and play 100 percent. Q. What accounts for the run you're on now? What's happening that hasn't happened before? AMER DELIC: Well, confidence is always a big thing in anything that you do. But it's just -- I don't even know. Some days you have it; some days you don't. And I've been kind of able to string a few wins together here. But preparation I would say. I went home -- after Indian Wells I lost early. I wasn't feeling all that great. I had all these weeks strung together and like the time was passing by, tournaments were passing by, and I felt like I wasn't really accomplishing anything. Everything was just kind of monotone. So finally I was like, I need a break from this right after Indian Wells. I flew home, took two days off, went to Jacksonville and started working out again, just absolutely basic -- that's kind of what got me back into Top 100 at the end of last year. My coach Paul Pisani. I went out there with buckets of balls, because he doesn't really hit. He can't really rally a ball, and it was just side to side, side to side, and then get on a bike for an hour and a half, get my conditioning, get in the gym, and literally day in and day out for five days just before I came here, literally back to basics. It's kind of helping. I know when I go out there on the court, physically it doesn't matter. I don't think too many guys can really just like blow the ball past me. I think physically I can handle it, and just mentally it's going out there and being able to stay focused the whole match. Q. As far as your family background, was your family forced to leave Bosnia because of the war? AMER DELIC: Well, actually we came, as I said, in '96. The war was over in '95. But at the time a few of the families had an opportunity to start really a new life in another country, and it was a cousin of mine that came to Jacksonville, Florida. That's where he was sent, literally. We kind of came six months after him, and during our interview they asked us, Do you have any family? We said, Yeah, we have a cousin. They said, All right. That's where you're going. Otherwise we would have ended up in Cincinnati or St. Louis or whatnot. I was just fortunate. Did I know the ATP headquarters were there? No clue (laughter). It's honestly just been luck and it's kind of snowballed since. Q. Was your family affected by the situation? AMER DELIC: No, fortunately I did not have anybody near me that really died. The thing is that after the war, everything was so corrupt that it was absolutely no future for my parents or my family there. It was either stay there and kind of literally battle for survival day by day or start a new life somewhere else. My parents were still young -- they're still young now. My dad is 50, my mom is 49. But they decided to take that chance and just come over here without literally a word of English and decided to come over here and start a new life just because of my sister and me. Q. Could you talk about how that background affected you as an athlete? Is it overstating the case to say that you're a more competitive person because of what you've been through? AMER DELIC: I don't want to make a big drama out of this, but I appreciate some things I think a little bit more, and it's helped me. I wouldn't say some of the other kids are spoiled, but I definitely, as I said, appreciate some things a little bit more. How has it affected me competitively? I mean, I would think the same. I did not have -- when we came over, my parents did not have money to go send me to play -- pay for a private lesson or anything. We didn't even have a car for the first six months. We lived in an apartment with my cousins, all seven of us in a two-bedroom apartment. Was I thinking that I was going to be here at NASDAQ today beating the No. 4 player in the world? No. My parents came over literally with four bags, $1,000. And one of the things that I brought were two of my racquets, and it's just -- I've been fortunate that, as I said, landing in Jacksonville, Florida, great weather, plenty of tennis courts. We had tennis courts in our apartment complex. So I would go out there literally -- my dad would throw some balls at me and I would just hit them. It just ended up in high school when they were signing me up for classes they asked me in the guidance office if I was playing any sports. I was like, Yeah, I play tennis. Whatever. I did not know there was such a thing as high school tennis. Whatever. A few days later a guy comes into one of my classes and calls out my name, and I'm like, Oh, God, what did I do now? The next thing I know he comes out and said, I'm the high school coach here. We have a tennis team. Our season is over, because I kind of came at the end of April, but some of the guys still kind of hit and whatnot. So he's like, Would you be interested in coming out? I said, Sure. So I told my dad. Next thing you know, this coach signs me up for a local tournament in one of the country clubs in Jacksonville. I was like, listen, I don't have t. He money for the fee or anything. He said, don't worry, I'll take care of it, just show up and play. It was 16 and under and I was 14 at the time, got to the finals. Local coaches heard about me, kind of started bouncing around some clubs with the kids and started hitting with some of them. Their parents would literally come and pick me up and I would hit with some of them, and that's how I was playing for the first few years. Q. When did you learn to play? AMER DELIC: I started off when I was close to six. There was one club in Tuzla, Bosnia. That's where I'm from. It was just another thing, like nobody in my family plays. Some of my dad's friends at work, they had some older kids. They signed them up for tennis, so my dad was like, All right, that's where you're going, too. Q. What are your parents' names, if you can spell them? What did they do for a living where you lived? What do they do now? AMER DELIC: My mom's name is Sadina, and she used to be an accountant in Tuzla. Now she works also for Washington Mutual, but it's not really an accountant job like she used to do, but she likes it. And my dad used to -- my dad's name is Muharem, and he used to be a flight controller at the army airport in Tuzla. Right now he works for Gate Petroleum Company in Jacksonville. He used to literally drive trucks and deliver gas. Now what he does, is he installs temporary pumps and whatnot at construction sites. Q. The cousin that was sent, was that by some kind of a refuge organization? AMER DELIC: Yes, it's called -- well, there's Lutheran Social Services in Jacksonville, Florida, and they would sponsor families and they would pay for the tickets and kind of take care of you for the first month. But you have to pay off those tickets. They give you like a few years, three years, to pay off. So that's the same organization we came through. Q. You spoke English when you came over? AMER DELIC: No, not a word. My sister was the only one, and she's 14 months older than me. Her name is Lejla, and she was the only one. She would go to my parents' like job appointments, whatever, and she would be the translator at like 15. And Social Security, whatever, she was the one going in there, signing it up and all this stuff. Trust me, she's 25 now, she's going to be 26, and if you talk to her on the phone you would think you were talking to like a 50 year old. That's not an insult by any means, but I'm saying the maturity level that she was forced to kind of pick it up so quickly it is amazing. She's still at Illinois right now doing her Ph.D. Q. Do you still travel with your sketch pad and pencils? AMER DELIC: I do, actually. I actually have a website. A couple of my friends started it up, and I've been kind of messing around and stuff. They did some like tee shirt designs and whatever. Actually I did a tee shirt design, so I have that kind of carrying around. Q. Between the time you turned pro and now, did you have very many moments where you thought, What am I doing? I'm just too far behind. I need to maybe pursue another line. AMER DELIC: At this exact time last year I was actually on crutches. I was playing a Sunrise challenger event, which was the week before NASDAQ, or NASDAQ at the time, and I rolled my ankle so bad I was carried off the court on the cart. I came back like six weeks later or whatever. I was actually here doing rehab while this was all going on, and that was one of the most painful things, when you knew you could be playing, and instead you're watching. But I came back about six weeks later and I was playing, but it was not -- nothing good. I was ranked, whatever, 180, 190, nothing was really going well. Wimbledon quallies lost first round. I was already thinking about Plan B, which was going back to school in the fall. Yeah, just continuing my education. I had one year left at University of Illinois, and I was literally telling my friends, Guys, I think this could be it. So I was kind of running on fumes literally. I didn't know -- I gave it a shot, and then I was like, Maybe this is not for me. But then after consulting my parents, coming from Europe, they were like, All right, why don't you -- don't make such a quick decision right away. Just go give it a shot until the end of this summer. Just see how it goes. I had about ten days at home before the next tournament, and just, as I said, that was initially the first time I went to working out with Paul and just absolute basic stuff, which I never used to do before. I would never take out a bucket of balls and hit serves. Like for years and years it just came naturally to me. But in matches my serve percentage would go from like 40 to 80, and it was just up and down, up and down. I just went back to basics and became a little more consistent. Kind of did well at one of the challengers, did well at the next one, and kind of got this confidence going. Ended up in the fall, I believe I had done nine challengers, I had six finals, two semifinals, and I won two titles, and that got me from 200 exactly to 92 in the world. Then I started off the year Top 100, and that was a big confidence boost. Then I was like, All right, let's see how far I can keep this going. Q. What are you thinking now, Top 50, more than that? AMER DELIC: Yeah, I'm not really thinking -- you know, a few people a few days ago asked me, Making some money now? I'm like, Yeah, what about all the expenses the last few years? No, I'm thinking, just trying to play better, trying to improve. I mean, there's a lot of bad things I did out there today. First few games I was like, Oh, here we go again. But then I knew I could play better, so it was just a matter of cleaning those things up and seeing how far it takes me. Q. Do you know who you play next? AMER DELIC: I believe the winner of Chela and Berdych. Q. Have you played them? AMER DELIC: No, never. Q. I mean, after this victory, does it give you more hope? I mean, how far do you think you can go? AMER DELIC: It sure helps, but it's another match, as I said, and on any day anything can happen, so we'll see. I'm not sure how I'm going to be playing tomorrow, so I've just got to go rest up at home, come out there, do some buckets, hit some serves before the match and see what happens. Q. You became an American citizen? You are an American citizen? AMER DELIC: Yes. Q. When did you become an American citizen? AMER DELIC: Well, the process took like seven years, but you can apply after five years. So in, I believe it was kind of right after I won the NCAA, it was that few months literally afterwards that I got citizenship. Q. And your parents, are they American citizens? AMER DELIC: Yes, everybody. Q. What year did you graduate high school, by the way? AMER DELIC: In 2000. End of FastScripts |
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