|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
WIMBLEDONJune 28, 2007Eric ButoracJamie MurrayLONDON, ENGLAND THE MODERATOR: Good evening. Questions, please. Q. Perfect start for you? JAMIE MURRAY: Yeah, it's all right. I mean, we did what we needed to do. I wouldn't say it was the greatest ever match we played. But we're through to the next round, which is obviously the best thing we could ask for. Q. Is it difficult when you've had to wait around so long and you finally get on court? JAMIE MURRAY: Yeah, I mean, I don't really like kind of hanging around the tournaments, waiting for them to start. I'd rather just get there and play. Yeah, we had to hang around for a few days before the first match. We didn't let it show. Q. Was there a sense, sort of a pretty dismal few days for the British game. Do you feel the responsibility to give everyone a lift maybe? JAMIE MURRAY: I don't know about that. I mean, we go out to win a match for ourselves. Hopefully everybody else can win theirs, too, but that doesn't always happen, unfortunately. I don't really know what to say to that. Q. Have you noticed a kind of slight hangover from the British players from the last few days? JAMIE MURRAY: I don't think so. A lot of the guys today, Aucky is still out on the court now. He's two sets up to one now, so hopefully he can finish the job. Delgy and Chinks just lost an unbelievably tight doubles match there to a team ranked No. 4 in the world. Those guys, they're doing their thing, they just lost some tight matches. Q. Obligatory Andy question. Was he here today? JAMIE MURRAY: He was watching, yeah. Q. How is he? JAMIE MURRAY: I haven't spoken to him for about a week, if that answers you question. I don't know. Q. He said was going to try to keep a low profile. He wasn't expecting to be here. JAMIE MURRAY: Yeah, I guess. He was watching way up in the player restaurant and stuff. I think it's obviously frustrating for him that he can't play, so why would he kind of want to hang around the tournament and stuff. Yeah, it's normal not to want to be around. Q. What do you know about your opponents in the next round? Do you expect to beat them? ERIC BUTORAC: They're a very good team. I think they're ranked like 6 or 7 in the world. We played them once in Memphis and beat them. We know that we can beat them. But on any given day, I mean, anyone can win. They're one of the top teams in the world, but they're not a team that's going to blow you off the court. You play maybe like a Bryan brothers, Bjorkman/Mirnyi. Some days, no matter how well you play, you can't beat them. They're not like an overpowering team. They're going to give us chances to play. Maybe our best tennis is maybe a little better than their best tennis. If we serve big, return well, take over the net, we're the better team. Whether or not that's the outcome on any given day, it's definitely a good match-up for us, I think. Q. How big an adjustment is it to go to playing best-of-five? JAMIE MURRAY: I guess we'll find out if we get into a fifth set (laughter). ERIC BUTORAC: Yeah, exactly. JAMIE MURRAY: Today wasn't the longest of matches. Still, it's grass court doubles. The points aren't exactly so long, it's not so taxing. No, I would hope our fitness was up to scratch. Q. Have you been working on specific fitness things to prepare you for playing best-of-five? JAMIE MURRAY: No (laughter). I guess not. ERIC BUTORAC: I'd be surprised if fitness becomes an issue. I guess you never really know until you're there. Yeah, we spend a lot of time in the gym. JAMIE MURRAY: As you can tell. ERIC BUTORAC: Our matches are quite short. Doubles may be different mentally. I've never played a five-setter in my life. I wouldn't know exactly. Normal matches, with the no-ad scoring and tiebreaker for the third, there's really no way it can last longer than an hour and a half. To play regular scoring, play best-of-five, no tiebreaker in the fifth, I think actually staying mentally focused for three and a half, four, four and a half hours, that's probably even a bit more than it would be physically. Q. Having expressed mild confidence about your next match, taking one at a time, are you still looking forward maybe in the long run to a match against the Bryans? JAMIE MURRAY: Yeah, I think if at some point over the next few days we're playing the Bryan brothers, we're doing pretty well. Q. Have you set yourself a target about how far you can go in the competition? JAMIE MURRAY: No, because I don't think that's really the way to do it. I mean, this is only our second Grand Slam together. I'd never won a Grand Slam match until today. I mean, we know if we perform well, then we've got a good shot to beat anybody. Hopefully we'll give ourselves a chance to do that. Q. Do you feel different this year? You're saying it's your first Grand Slam win. Do you feel better coming into this year, a lot more confident? JAMIE MURRAY: Yeah, we've got a lot to be confident about. We've had a great year. We've won three tournaments. We won in Nottingham last week, which is obviously the lead-up tournament before Wimbledon. So, yeah, it's a lot different. We're ranked like 35 or something in the world. I mean, we've got every reason to kind of feel that we can go out there and play some good tennis and win some matches. Q. That said, you won three tournaments. What is your year-end goal for the pair? JAMIE MURRAY: Every time they ask me that question, I don't know how to answer that. ERIC BUTORAC: It's tough. I guess we started the year, we weren't even playing together. We were both ranked -- I don't know what I was ranked, like 75. What were you ranked? 80? I don't know. Obviously once we joined, we started climbing up the ranks pretty quickly. If you told me at the end of the year I was going to finish top 40, I would have signed that contract. Now that I am 35 or something, whatever I am, obviously then you set your goals higher. I think it's almost easier just to kind of pick little kind of short-term goals and just really start kind of improving in certain aspects of your game, win every match that comes at you, the ranking takes care of itself, the points take care of itself. The results will follow. I mean, I guess if you gave me a contract and said I could be top 20 at the end of the year, I'd probably sign it right now. What if we win Wimbledon? Then I don't want to be top 20, I want to be top 10. I guess take it week by week. JAMIE MURRAY: Winning just takes cares of everything. Q. What part of your partnership do you think works well? JAMIE MURRAY: I guess you watched us play, we're pretty similar types of players. We're both lefties, serve well. Pretty big at the net. I think we obviously get on well together, which is I think key for a doubles team. Do you feel that way? ERIC BUTORAC: Some days (smiling). I think our coach Louis Cayer has been real instrumental. He started working with us a little bit last year when we played. Then he worked with us this year. He's got us on the same page as far as formations and tactics to the point where we go back and talk between every point, but it really might not even be necessary because I feel exactly where he's hitting every ball. I know where he's going to be. I know what he's going to back me up on. It makes the court seem smaller, the game seem a lot easier when you really know exactly what your partner is thinking and when you have a lot of confidence in him to perform well because obviously we've performed very well under pressure. When it gets to a big point, you have a lot of belief in your partner. That helps as well. Q. That match tonight, was that a pace you normally play at? JAMIE MURRAY: Yeah, we don't really -- ERIC BUTORAC: You mean like in between points or style of play? Q. You seemed to move quickly all the time. JAMIE MURRAY: It's better than moving slow. Q. It certainly is. ERIC BUTORAC: I think we both serve really big to start points. We're both kind of long and tall at the net. To utilize that, the best way is really to crash the net and make it quickly, make teams go over, through, around you. These guys tried to go through us a little bit today. We showed we can handle their pace. What options did they have after that? To kind of go around us, to go over us. It's tough for a team on a grass court, for a team like those guys today, to go and beat us without solid tennis. It's going to take a real good effort, I think. JAMIE MURRAY: Yeah, like today I didn't play one first volley in the whole match off my serve. They're either hitting unreturnable serves or he's knocking the first shot off. The rallies are going to be short. We're going to play quick. Physically it's not that tiring. ERIC BUTORAC: We played the Bryans once last year. Bob Bryan serves just unbelievably. Mike is very good at the net. The points go so fast, it's like Bob hits an ace, Bob hits a serve, Mike hits it in the stands, Bob hits another service winner, Bob hits an ace. The whole game took like nine seconds. You're changing over, going like, Wow. It's quite intimidating to play against that kind of style. I think we're trying to play a similar type game where when we hold repeatedly easily or serves, it puts pressure on them because they feel like they're not getting chances to break us. That's kind of the image we want to have as a team to be most effective. Q. Do you have specific tactical plans for specific opponents that come up? I'm thinking of watching them on video beforehand. JAMIE MURRAY: Yeah, I mean, we have our basic kind of strategy that we want to employ on the court. It will vary depending on who we're playing. Maybe the guy has a crap backhand or something, so maybe you want to serve there. One guy can't volley or something, so we want to keep going at him at the net. We have our kind of basic plan we try to work towards. Q. You have that information about your next opponents? JAMIE MURRAY: I think so, yeah. ERIC BUTORAC: Our coach that works with us now coached them for like a year. We should have a fair bit of information. Q. Are you playing the mixed? JAMIE MURRAY: Yeah. Q. You're going for two titles? JAMIE MURRAY: I guess so. ERIC BUTORAC: Hoping to meet each other in the final. End of FastScripts |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|