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WIMBLEDON

July 5, 2008

LONDON, ENGLAND

NESTOR-ZIMONJIC/Bjorkman-Ullyett
7-6, 6-7, 6-3, 6-3

THE MODERATOR: Questions for our doubles champions, Nenad Zimonjic and Daniel Nestor, please.

Q. How did you do it Nestor?
DANIEL NESTOR: Choose a good partner. You know how it is.

Q. How did you feel actually after finishing your match? How exciting is it, fourth Grand Slam title?
DANIEL NESTOR: It's very exciting. I thought we played a great match. We focused really hard. It's one of those matches where you don't want to give an inch. Every game and point is tough. You feel like you have to focus really hard because you're playing against one of the best competitors over the years, singles and doubles, Jonas Bjorkman.
Ullyett is playing great doubles, too. They beat the Bryans and they're confident. Just like that first set. It was a little bit of nerves out there, and in finally we broke through. They kept up their level in the second, and, you know, we were fortunate to get a break.
I thought we started playing better in the third and forth, especially returning. The whole match we served really well.

Q. How nervous did you get right at the end being that close?
DANIEL NESTOR: Did we look nervous in the last game?

Q. No, you didn't.
DANIEL NESTOR: That was the best game we played probably, Nenad, too. Nenad hit two unbelievable winners. I thought I returned much better as the match went on. It was nice not to have to serve it out, for sure. That would have made us nervous.

Q. Do you have any worries about the injury? Maybe it was fine all taped up, but did you have any concerns?
DANIEL NESTOR: Well, you know, he's obviously, you know, really courageous. It's tough mentally to be able to deal with that.
For me just watching him, I mean, he didn't look any lesser in the practices we had after it happened, so I really wasn't thinking about it that much. I thought he was still playing at a high level. It wasn't a situation in his game where you could really tell there was a weakness.
I wasn't thinking about it that much. I don't know how he was.
NENAD ZIMONJIC: It was all right for everything except returning high balls on the backhand where I couldn't really bring up my racquet. That was the worst case, and that's probably my best return.
That was a little bit frustrating, but then again it helped. I told Danny, I made the joke about ball toss. Sometimes my ball toss goes off. With this thing it doesn't allow you to use the wrist, so I had perfect ball toss the whole time, and I thought I served really well.
The only bad thing was on the serve when you have to bring down the left arm, you still use it, and that was a little bit painful. But then I was trying to, you know, trying to find a way not to use it as much.
Conditions today, I thought they were very difficult because it was windy. Both teams were serving good, and I thought we played really well under pressure.
The only time they really had the chance to break was when Danny was serving for the third set. Other than that I thought we played really well, not giving them any chances on our serves. And then like Danny said, once we get the first break then we were playing a lot better.
For me, the best game was the last game definitely returning-wise. One lucky shot for me the first point, but then did Danny hit a great return and that gave us big, big advantage. Then 15-30 again a good return.
So there was -- those were the keys, you know: we kept pressure on them, we didn't give them any chances, and we picked up the returns towards the end.

Q. How satisfying is this after the disappointment of losing in Paris?
DANIEL NESTOR: For me it's my first title. For Danny it's achieving the -- you know, he won everything now that you can win in tennis in doubles. He was No. 1 and he won everything.
But for me this is the first title. My first finals here was 2004 where I twisted my ankle in the semis against Danny and Knowles. I managed to get on the court and finish that match, but then in the finals I couldn't make it. It was really bad, but I went on court to play.
Today it was much easier that I played with a one-handed backhand, so that allowed me to somehow play. This is the best thing that happened to me in the career definitely.
It's just amazing feeling, you know, to be on the Centre Court. You don't get too much chances first of all. First finals that we played it was on Court 1. Second one it was 2006 against the Bryans where I thought we didn't have too many chances with Santoro.
It was Centre Court this year. We had only opportunity to play that match against Paes and Dlouhy. Started on the Centre and finished on Court 1, and then we won finals on the Centre Court.
So definitely great memories. It's nice that the weather hold up for us. I thought we really played well as a team, and individually as well.
Really, really happy, you know, for Danny and for me, too. This is great achievement. Hopefully it's going continue for me, you know, to win some more.
Hopefully one day I can achieve what Danny did, you know, and just to continue playing this way. Now I think we can enjoy more and go all the way this year and try to finish as No. 1.

Q. Two questions: Danny, no Canadian has ever had a Wimbledon title to their name. What does that mean to you? And for both of you, you both had to change partners and went through a lot. Does this make it feel like it was worth all that?
DANIEL NESTOR: Yeah, first question, for sure. It's a great feeling. Wimbledon, you know, has the most history and tradition of any tournament. Being the only Canadian to win it is very special.
And for me, as Nenad said, I feel like I've achieved a lot in tennis. I feel very fortunate to have won today, and we feel like we had to play our best to do it. That makes it more satisfying.
Now I think we're the No. 1 team so far for the year, which is very exciting, too. You know, hopefully we can relax and carry this through the rest of the season and play a little more relaxed and enjoy things a little more.
I think now that we got big one under the belt it's for sure going to make things easier for us. Like you said, when you go back a year ago it was a terrible time for both of us. I think we were switching partners with a lot of indecision with our other partners.
Mark and I had just won the French and he was expecting us to stay together after winning that. You know, you guys know the whole story. So just to come back here one year later and be able to win, it makes it that much more special.
I feel very fortunate to have always had good partners, and now is no exception. Hopefully -- I have no plans of stopping. I think now it's more incentive to keep playing, you know, the fact that I'm playing great, we're playing great.
You know, as I said, hopefully this will allow us to relax and enjoy - especially for me - enjoy tennis more. Nenad seems to enjoy it more already. Hopefully I can get to his level.

Q. Was he going to talk about splitting the partners and how that was for him and how it is now to win?
NENAD ZIMONJIC: For me it was pretty much the story of my career, is looking for the partners. I played pretty much with everybody on the tour, with the singles guys, doubles guys, and I was trying to find somebody, you know, that I believe we can be No. 1 and win the big titles.
I was very close few times, but the way Danny is playing and what he achieved, I believe that we had great opportunity, you know, to win Grand Slam. Didn't matter which one. I thought we had the chance any tournament that we play to win it.
It was difficult maybe in the beginning because we had big expectations, both of us, and we wanted to do well right away so badly. So that maybe put a lot of pressure on us.
As the time went by, you know, we last now five tournaments. We were in the finals. We won three and we were finalists twice.
This is also my first Grand Slam title. It's special that it's Wimbledon as well. Hopefully I can continue this way and get few more. They're not too many tennis players that can say they won Grand Slams in doubles.
I had the chance to win it in mixed doubles, which is also great, but this is even more and bigger. I'm really happy.
Last year Jelena Jankovic won here in mixed doubles. Before that we never had anybody as a champion, so this makes to really big for me. Slobodan Zivojinovic was the only one to win a Grand Slam. It was at the US Open. This is my 21st title and the biggest one for sure.

Q. Daniel, when you were talking about relaxing and enjoying it, I presume that means you weren't relaxing and enjoying it before.
DANIEL NESTOR: I mean, it goes through stages.

Q. But has it been since all the drama of last year, or anything specific?
DANIEL NESTOR: No, you know, I've had some success in Grand Slams, but if you look at my record in finals it's not great compared to my record in other finals.
It's always something that's lingering around. I feel like I've played great in certain finals, and times when I feel like I've been very unlucky, too. Feels like a lot of ups and downs.
I think that's what makes it more special. I thought I played very solid today. I can't say I played my best match ever, but I felt like it was very solid. I served well and I don't think I made hardly any mistakes at the net.
I think it was just one of those matches where I feel good because I was mentally very strong. Both of us were very strong. That's why it's more satisfying, because you feel like when you had to step up you did.
That's what makes winning the big tournaments more satisfying.

End of FastScripts

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