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ROGERS CUPJuly 20, 2008Novak DjokovicTORONTO, ONTARIO Q. (Indiscernible). After you said you were very tired, you needed a break. How do you feel now? NOVAK DJOKOVIC: I feel much more rested, yeah. It was a bad tournament for me. Just nothing went the right way but, of course, just turning another page and looking forward to hardcourt season. Q. (Indiscernible.) NOVAK DJOKOVIC: No, not too much. But I heard it was a great match. Q. You are attending your championship from the (indiscernible). How do you feel? Would you be able to do that? NOVAK DJOKOVIC: Well, I mean, I always go with highest intentions in, basically, every tournament I get in. Obviously, this is the surface which suits my game most. My most preferred surface, the surface where I did -- where I had my best results and biggest achievement of my career. So I think it is enough reason to expect to do well in the hardcourt season. Obviously, defending this title, I have a lot of responsibilities and expectations but it is a challenge. Q. Novak, tell us about your mind-set over the last month or so coming off Wimbledon. What have you done to refocus and, I mean, revamp from that loss? NOVAK DJOKOVIC: I have just tried to be positive, not think about it too much. Just a bad day. You know, it was a lot of tournaments. A lot of dedication you need to put into the tennis. There is a lot of events. So now I'm fresh, I'm ready and hopefully I can do well. Q. Novak, when you talk about the rivalry right now in men's tennis between you and Nadal and Roger, it is so exciting for people to watch. What do you think some of the similarities between the three of you and what do you think are some of the differences in terms of tennis or penalty? NOVAK DJOKOVIC: Obviously, the difference between the top players and the rest of the guys is the mental stability or ability to cope with the pressure in the certain moments and most important moments. You know, tennis is a really tough sport. You have to travel 10 out of 12 months all over the world and you have to be consistent because you have -- in my position, you have two guys winning all the time and getting to the final stages of basically every tournament. If I am trying to be better than them, I have to win all the time as well. So it is not really -- Q. How much time were you off the court after Wimbledon? Did you take the first two weeks and rest? How quickly did you get back to it? NOVAK DJOKOVIC: I was resting as much as I needed. Not too much. I had good preparations for about 2, 2 1/2 weeks. Q. You spent the first six months of the year getting closer and closer to Nadal and Federer. And over the last six weeks, it feels like they are pulling away again. Is that how you feel? Do you feel there is more of a gap, or do you feel like you are right there with them? NOVAK DJOKOVIC: It has changed so much. I lost -- okay, I lost the match in Wimbledon which was a bit unexpected to lose in the second round. You know, from my position again, I am not really down. I am not depressed, whatever. I am not thinking negatively. I am just looking forward to the hardcourt. And I have been playing really well in the first six months of the year. I have no reason to think bad about those first six months because of just one loss. I am not paying attention on how much points I learn or closing the gap or it is bigger or whatever. You know, it is a matter of, you know, if I'm improving in my game or not. I just want to keep winning and results will come sooner or later. Q. Continuing the theme of Wimbledon, you have a chance of facing Safin in this tournament. How do you feel about that? NOVAK DJOKOVIC: We have to go slowly. I have a very difficult opponent in the first round, so we'll see. Q. Beating Rafael last year and coming close to Roger, did you feel this tournament for you last year was kind of a jumping-off point? NOVAK DJOKOVIC: This was one of the tournaments that was a turning point in my career. I can say this was a tournament where I won against the best three players in the world in the final stages of the tournament. So it, obviously, gave me a lot of motivation to do even better in the future and gave me a boost up, I can say. So it was great -- it was a great, great victory for me. And since then I believed in my game and myself much more. Q. (Indiscernible). You are on the Player Council and the ATP trial with the Hamburg tournament starts tomorrow. How much attention do you think you will be playing towards that and how much awareness is there amongst the players of the potential impact this case could have? NOVAK DJOKOVIC: Well, you know, the Players -- the Players Council is just reelected now, just a month ago. And we're trying -- we're trying to do -- everybody is trying to do the best for this sport. So the player's voice has to be heard, that's for sure. That's what we are trying to do. We are trying to be united and work on some things, some issues in this sport which we are trying to improve obviously. But, first of all, we have to wait for the trial, which is going on tomorrow. Obviously, it is going to decide a future of this sport. And hopefully it is going to be, you know, in our favor, we hope, because we don't want any scandals. We don't want to send the picture to the world that in our sport is more problems, you know, than improvements. So we'll try to win and progress in some things. Q. When you say "our favor," you mean ATP? NOVAK DJOKOVIC: I mean the players. End of FastScripts |
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