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WIMBLEDON

June 27, 2009

Tommy Haas

LONDON, ENGLAND

T. HAAS/M. Cilic
5-7, 5-7, 6-1, 7-6, 10-8

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please, for Tommy Haas.

Q. What did you do last night to relax and prepare yourself again for this morning?
TOMMY HAAS: There wasn't really much time to relax, to be honest. By the time I got back to the house, my fiancÃ©e picked up some Indian food. I was getting ready for my treatment, massage, my physio.
While that was going on, we were listening to all the great legendary songs from Michael Jackson. You know, that's it. By the time we got done, it was really late. We just went to sleep and got ready this morning.

Q. How do you feel now?
TOMMY HAAS: Obviously I feel good. You know, winning these kind of matches, you know, it's like you're kind of still on a high in some ways. Body's feeling a little bit tired, to be honest. I mean, it was a long match, a tough battle yesterday with so many ups and downs. Also mentally it drains you for sure.
But overall feeling great. You know, good thing is day off tomorrow. Relax a little bit and get ready for my next match.

Q. After a marathon game like that, is it understandable to you why perhaps Rafael Nadal decided not to play Wimbledon?
TOMMY HAAS: Yeah, sure. I mean, to be totally honest, I don't know Rafael's situation. You know, I'm not that close to him. But, you know, the guy puts out so much effort every time and has played so many matches. Every tournament he plays, he gets to, you know, the final or either wins it, so he has a lot of strain on his body. He's had some problems with his knee.
I'm sure he's got to have some serious issues for not playing here. You know, it's one of the biggest tournaments we all get to play. It's a tough grind, that's for sure.

Q. With your play here and at the French Open, also the lead-up tournament into Wimbledon, what do you attribute your resurgence to?
TOMMY HAAS: Uhm, just never stopping believing in your game and having the right people around you or getting the right people around you. That's very important. You know, I believe in my game. When I'm feeling healthy and I feel fit and I feel I put in the work, you know, I have a very good game still to beat a lot of players and to give the top players trouble. And, uhm, you know, while I still feel that, you know, I also will continue to play the game and enjoy it as well.
You know, there's been lots of ups and downs. We could sit here much longer to go through, you know, the last year, year and a half with a lot of things that were not really going my way. And in the past even.
But, you know, at the same time, a lot of things have gone my way to be able to play the way I'm playing. But, yeah, everything just kind of put it together. I mean, French Open, I didn't really want to go there in the first place. I was feeling pretty good body-wise. Sometimes when you have that kind of mentality just to go and see what happens, you play a little bit more relaxed and loose.
I came very close to maybe beating Roger there, which was a great tournament for me anyway. And then winning a title again in Halle, Germany, you know, is obviously a dream come true for me in some ways to do it on home turf. Also winning now on all four surfaces is a great accomplishment in my career.
So you kind of keep going, and that's it. When you come here, you play match for match. That's it.

Q. Was that Federer match, do you think, a major breakthrough for you, even though you lost?
TOMMY HAAS: No. When you lose, there's no breakthrough.

Q. What do you tell yourself when you're walking on Centre Court knowing that in one break the match is over?
TOMMY HAAS: Yeah, it's tough. You know, I kind of had to deal with it after my first round when we had to stop at 4-All in the fourth. At that time I was still thinking, Okay, if it doesn't go my way in the fourth set, I'm going to be in the fifth.
You do hope maybe you get a break and finish it off, which happened against Peya in the first round. Last night you start looking around at like 8:45, 9:00. It's getting a little darker. At the same time, maybe I could have finished it off in the fourth set and not having to worry about it with the one match point or two match points that I had in the fourth.
So either way. And then, you know, but you have so much adrenaline left and you kind of want to finish the match either way it happens. When they told us two more games at 5-All, you know, I was happy to be at 5-All, because I think he was serving for it. I don't even remember so much. But it was back and forth.
So, you know, it was getting really dark out there. When he had two match points at 5-6, I was like, Great, maybe he's going to finish me off right before we're supposed to stop due to darkness. Then played some really good points to come back to 6-All. I would just like to see maybe they can just make some magic lights happen when you're that close to finishing a match so we can just finish it at least.

Q. How about this morning? How was it coming back out just to finish off?
TOMMY HAAS: Yeah, it's tough, because he's serving first. If he holds serve, it's pressure on me just to stay in the match. I think we both knew that. And we both probably were a little stiff from last night and worried about who's going to get a better start.
There's so many thoughts going through your head all the time, what kind of game plan, be more aggressive, maybe wait for your opportunity, maybe just keep the ball in play. So many different things going through your head.
You know, when I got the break, I was just trying to focus on holding serve. Next thing you know, he had breakpoint again. So it was like a dramatic match.

End of FastScripts

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