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ROGERS CUP

August 11, 2009

Novak Djokovic

MONTREAL, QUEBEC

N. DJOKOVIC/P. Polansky
6-4, 7-6

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. That's a nice T-shirt you have there.
NOVAK DJOKOVIC: Yeah. Got it for a present from the girls here that come to support me for this tournament. They've been traveling all around the world with a Serbian flag, four or five girls. They gave me this shirt. It was quite nice.

Q. How did you feel out there today?
NOVAK DJOKOVIC: I felt -- I felt quite good. Not from the start, though. The first couple of games I was sweating a lot and I was quite nervous, and it was the first match after Wimbledon, after a while, and it wasn't easy, you know, to get into the rhythm. But I managed to get my things together towards the end of the first set. It was important to get advantage.
Then second set he had some chances to level it, to level the one set up, but I managed to play well in the important moments. I'm happy to get through in straight sets.

Q. Did you see anything in his game that you liked?
NOVAK DJOKOVIC: Well, I saw him play yesterday. I have seen that he has a quite powerful forehand and a good serve that he knows how to use, and he runs around his backhand and plays quite good. His forehand is his strength and his weapon in the game.
But, you know, I was trying to open the court and, you know, change the pace all the time, play some short balls, and I think it worked out well. And although I could play better in some important moments, let's say in the second set when I was some break points up, I just gave him easy chances to take over controlling the point.
This is something that I have been doing lately. You know, I have been playing a little bit too defensive, and I'm aware of that. So I think today in the important moments when I needed to step it up, that's what I did. This is important, of course, towards the, you know, the end of the tournament.

Q. What have you been doing since Wimbledon?
NOVAK DJOKOVIC: Well, I had some rest and then I had a couple of weeks of practice and preparation and, you know, that's more or less about it.
You know, I had a lot of tennis, a lot of matches in the first five, six months of the year, so I needed, you know, two weeks really of rest so I can take my mind off the game and, you know, calm down a little bit and then try to work on well and hope that it's going to pay off and I have a good season.

Q. Why did you only play doubles in Umag?
NOVAK DJOKOVIC: Because I didn't want to play singles because it didn't fit into my schedule. I didn't want to play matches on clay, and they made it hardcourt, one court with the hardcourt surface, for all of the players.
I was using every day, so it was quite similar conditions to actually Cincinnati and quite humid and actually similar to here, so I was trying to practice well.

Q. And was that where you were training before coming here?
NOVAK DJOKOVIC: Sorry?

Q. Was that where you were training before coming here?
NOVAK DJOKOVIC: I was training there for a week, so I trained in Monte-Carlo mostly.

Q. This is a little bit off, but you are on the player council and a lot of us haven't heard from Adam Helfant since January. I just wondered if you could talk a little bit about the conversations you've had with him and maybe a little about his priorities.
NOVAK DJOKOVIC: I don't know about what his priorities are. You have to hear that from somebody who is working -- an official from ATP, because I'm in the players council, and we talk about some other subjects, you know, that we focus on, and we don't meet him as much as you think we do.

End of FastScripts

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