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WIMBLEDON

June 29, 2007

Janko Tipsarevic

LONDON, ENGLAND

THE MODERATOR: Janko Tipsarevic.

Q. Were you aware you were down match point?
JANKO TIPSAREVIC: Not really. I knew that if I started to think, Oh, I'm down match point, and he didn't miss many backhand slices from the baseline, there would be a possibility that I would choke.
I played not as aggressive, but I think it was smart because also he is also on the court four hours and he also needs to win the last point.
I mean, on my luck he missed that really, really easy slice on the match point.

Q. How do you explain last year you kept playing challenger tournaments? You won four of them.
JANKO TIPSAREVIC: Last year I actually didn't play too many challengers. My challenger record was solid. I played seven and I won four. My thinking about the world tennis, and everybody would agree with me, is that the idea of tennis is to beat big players on big tournaments and to play on the ATP Tour.
I didn't play as good as I should on the ATP tournaments, so I came back on challengers to try and win some points. Luckily I did that on a really successful basis.

Q. I've been in Belgrade, but I cannot remember a grass court there.
JANKO TIPSAREVIC: As you all know, Jankovic is No. 3 and Ivanovic is No. 5, and Djokovic is No. 4, and Zimonjic is in doubles top six or seven. We don't have one hard court in the country.
Tennis, as I know, is played 71% on something else except clay. We have five carpet courts. Everything else is clay. That's it.
People keep asking me, How is this possible? What is happening in the country? Maybe some radiation from the bombing or stuff.

Q. Some radiation from?
JANKO TIPSAREVIC: The bombing. It was a joke.
You all know the situation in the country was really bad. I would like to use this opportunity to thank my family because at the point when I was growing up as a tennis player, there were no sponsors, no Federation, no nothing.
I'm not blaming the Federation or anything. It's just that the political situation of the country was a complete mess. I mean, everything was going down. You can only imagine tennis, one of the most expensive sports in the world, how is it possible we have so good players today. I really don't know.

Q. The two girls, they are younger than you. You were the first one to make it when you won the Australian juniors.
JANKO TIPSAREVIC: I was I can say a good junior. I was No. 1 in the world under 14, 16 and under 18. Then my passing from junior to senior tennis was not maybe as some people expected.
Being top hundred in the world is not bad. But if you are the No. 1 junior as a year younger, you would expect more from yourself.
I mean, it's never too late. I am 23. I am playing great tennis. I have at least seven or eight years ahead of me.

Q. Centre Court fell in love with you today. I don't know if you've realized they nicknamed you Tipsy. Were you aware of their support and you are the modern face of tennis with your piercings?
JANKO TIPSAREVIC: The thing is, I think the crowd likes a fight. The crowd likes to see someone beating and trying to beat and competing with the No. 5 in the world, you know.
Ever since I was a kid, my dream was to win matches on Centre Court of Wimbledon because for me this is the most tournament in the world. Not because I won today. I was saying this since I was 12, since I started playing tennis.

Q. At times you were dictating the points. Could this be your lucky racquet with the red strings?
JANKO TIPSAREVIC: I hope it has nothing to do with the racquet. I mean, I was aggressive because this was the only way to play against Fernando. I played him two weeks ago in Queen's, and it was a really, really close match. I lost with a match point.
Pressing him on the backhand and going to the net was one of my tactics today. I mean, luckily -- 8-6 in the fifth set, it could have gone either way. I was down a break, as you all know. I'm lucky to be here as a winner.

Q. You were pushing him back to the baseline most of the time.
JANKO TIPSAREVIC: I knew if he started to dictate the point with the forehand or if he started to come into the net, it would be really, really tough for me to win.
My opinion is still that he has the best forehand of the world, so I needed to play most of the points to his backhand, trying to go to the net, because he's not missing from the baseline too many backhand slices if you don't put pressure on him.

Q. You were blonde once. You were a bit crazy. That didn't help you when you went from the juniors to the pro. You mentioned difficulties in Yugoslavia, former Yugoslavia. How could your family help you to play since the money was not probably that much? Castellani was a coach of yours. Why did you leave him?
JANKO TIPSAREVIC: First of all, my appearance, my image, I didn't dye my hair or change my look because I was trying to play better or trying to win the crowd over or something like that.
When I was doing this, I was never dreaming of being here one day. This was just a phase of my life, as let's say piercings that I have at the moment. Probably someday I'm going to take them off.
I was growing up -- I remember, because my mother told me, and it's not that I'm crying now and saying I have a big heart, it was really like this. My family from the paycheck that my father had working as a PE professor could buy two kilograms of carrot. That was it, nothing else.
Apart from that job, he was selling and renting skis because this was let's say popular in Serbia during wintertime. My mother is a housewife so we didn't have any income from her. Luckily my father believed enough that I can become an independent tennis player, that I one day can live, buy a house, support a family from the job I'm doing today.
I was with Alberto for one and a half year almost. We had a terrific -- we had a good I can say last season because I was in a huge crisis since Wimbledon last year until -- no, it was two years ago. Until the end of the year, I won one match. I was in a huge crisis. Alberto helped me. My ranking at the end of the year was 150 and I finished 60 the next year.
This year when we started working on clay court, it didn't work so well. I just felt that I need a change. It's just professional. I still talk to him. I talked to him actually yesterday. He gave me some suggestions and advices against the match with González. He's a great person. He has a huge heart. We didn't finish forever. Maybe one day we start to work again.

Q. A lot of people will have seen your tattoo. I understand it says, "Beauty will save the world." What are you trying to say with that quote?
JANKO TIPSAREVIC: In my free time I like to read. One of the favorite writers is the Russian guy,
Dostoyevsky. The quote, "The beauty will save the world" is from a book called "Idiot" where the main character believes in the idea that the inner beauty will save the world, and because of that idea he dies at the end.
This book means a lot to me in my personal ways because I have ideas about life because of this quote.

Q. Is that one quotation?
JANKO TIPSAREVIC: The left one is "Beauty will save the world" and the right one is the first two letters of the names of the members of my family: father, mother, me and brother.

Q. Were you there during the bombing?
JANKO TIPSAREVIC: No. I was in Montenegro for like five days when the bombing start. We somehow managed to get to Belgrade, drive to Budapest, fly to Barcelona for the practice.

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