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U.S. OPENAugust 30, 2009Sam QuerreyNEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK THE MODERATOR: Questions, please. Q. What do you think of the final at Wimbledon, just watching those two guys go at it? SAM QUERREY: I thought it was great. I didn't really get to watch it, because I was flying to Newport, Rhode Island, but I had to make a connection in Cincinnati. When I got off the plane, it was 12-All in the fifth set, so I got to watch it from there at a sports bar at the airport. So I missed the first 90% of it, but it was amazing, kind of did a lot for tennis. People were talking about that, for a solid two, three weeks after. It was just good. Q. Speaking about doing a lot for tennis, obviously America's always looking for its new tennis star. I guess maybe just an opening to that, who was your favorite American player growing up? Why did you get into the game? Who did you want to be like? SAM QUERREY: I didn't watch a whole lot of tennis, so I don't really have one favorite player but when I was younger it was always Sampras, Agassi. They were my two favorites. I kind of followed or cheered for Sampras more just because I was taller, he was a little tall. He kind of had a game I would follow rather than Andre; he was kind of more of a aggressive baseliner. And then it kind of switched. Then when I was 13 to 17 it was Andy and James. Those were the guys I was watching. So, you know, it wasn't really one guy. It was kind of a group of guys. It's not really the reason I got into tennis, and I lived next to a tennis club when I was like 6 years old and started doing the clinics and stuff after school. That's how I kind of got into it. Q. When did you realize that, hey, I might be more than just another guy at this? SAM QUERREY: I mean, probably when I was 18 I realized, hey, I can -- Q. It took that long? SAM QUERREY: I was planning on just playing in college. 17-and-a-half, 18. I was like hey, maybe I'm good enough now to go pro. That's eventually what happened. Q. Do you get caught up in all these discussions about, you know, America doesn't produce enough, you know, top, top stars and we're always looking for the new American star? I mean, do you ever pay attention to any of that? Do you feel any obligation to try to be that guy? SAM QUERREY: Not really. Yeah, you hear that question like every week. You know, everyone is doing what they can. You know, I'm making my way up the rankings. John Isner is making his way up. Donald Young qualified here this week, Jessie Levine is playing well. Hopefully there's a group of us that can jump into the top 50, and then, you know, top 20 and then top 10. I think we're all doing everything we can. A lot of times, you know, even if you go back a hundred years, you'll have a period of 10 years where you'll have four or five guys in the top 10, and then years where you might just have one guy. It's kind of like a rolling wave. Hopefully everyone is doing what they can, and hopefully I don't feel any extra pressure or anything. I hope those other guys don't, but we're all trying our best to get our rankings as high as they can be. Q. Do you think doing well here would have any impact on tennis in America? SAM QUERREY: Yeah. I mean, this is really the tournament that, you know, if you're an average sports than, you follow the Grand Slams and that's it. So you don't really know -- I mean, no one knows what happened, hey, I played Verdasco in New Haven last night. If you're not a sports fan, you have no idea that tournament is going on. Maybe more this summer because it was on ESPN, which has been great. That's much better than The Tennis Channel. Nothing against The Tennis Channel, but 4% of houses have The Tennis Channel. I think it needs to be on ESPN. The Slams are where the Americans -- if you want to get it out on the map and you want to make a name for yourself, if you want to move up the rankings, that's where you have to do it in the Slams. Q. The Samurais, were they up there at the other tournament or who's... SAM QUERREY: Kind of. They're mainly at LA Open, Indian Wells and some will be here this week. Most are back at school now, but a couple of my friends and kind of cousins of some friends live in New Haven, so they came out last week and took their shirts off and put some body paint on. Q. Do you think you'll get some of them to come down here? SAM QUERREY: Yeah, actually some of my friends are flying out and staying for the week. So they'll be out. Q. What would you attribute your rapid success to? Like as you said, you were sort of a late bloomer. You really started, you know, realizing that you could play professionally when you were 18, which is pretty late for most players. You know, three years, you're on the cusp of breaking into the top 20. How have you been able to do that? SAM QUERREY: I mean, when I was 12, like 12 to 18, I was always good. I was one in my age group and all those. I wanted to go pro. I think a lot of kids want to go pro. There is a difference between wanting to go pro and then realizing you can go pro. I'm sure there are a lot of 12 years old who want to go pro. I wanted to, I didn't realize I probably could until 17 or 18. I think the recent success is -- it's a factor of the last year and a half, two years and the work I've put in. Even like the clay court season, I thought I was playing great, I was doing the right things. The results didn't show but hopefully I'll just next year, you know, I'll be a little better. I think it helps a lot playing on the clay, going over to Europe and sticking out that six-to-eight-week trip. And that just all carried over to the summer. I might have, you know, lost a lot of matches there, but I was still playing well, and I was confident. Then I got to come over here and play on my favorite surface, in America. A lot of times when you keep winning you gain confidence, and the momentum just keeps building. Q. How does it feel now that you've won the US Open series, you beat Roddick in the first round in Cincinnati, coming into the US Open. What does it feel with that amount of confidence? SAM QUERREY: Feels great. I played 26 singles matches since Wimbledon. I'm ready to go, and hopefully this will be another good week. I've got plenty of preparation, I've played every week this summer. I'm excited and ready to go. Q. Are you trying to improve your fitness? What are the areas you think you need to work on? SAM QUERREY: I mean, everything could always get better. But the main focuses this summer, I've put a lot of work into my backhand. It used to be a liability a little bit, though it's pretty consistent. It's slowly turning into a weapon, and then a return, too. I'm holding serve easily most of the time, so I'm learning now I can take more chances on the return games, you know, because I'm holding easily, I can try to put more pressure on my opponents' serve games taking more chances, trying to step up into the court a little more. Always working on my net game. I could always hit that a little better. Q. Watching the Roddick match, you seems to be the aggressor during most of the match. You were pushing him a bit? SAM QUERREY: That's my game. I try to do that. I try to control the point especially with my forehand. That match I did especially well. Q. Were you surprised you beat Andy? SAM QUERREY: Yeah. Q. How does that feel? SAM QUERREY: I mean, that felt good. Any time you get a top-10 win, it's a good feeling. It was tough for Andy. He, you know, he finaled in Washington and semifinaled Montreal the week before, so he had played a lot of matches. I could tell he was a little tired out there. He maybe wasn't at his best. Still, I'm going to take it, you know. It felt great, but it's just one match. Q. But it does give you a little more confidence when you play players in the top 10... SAM QUERREY: Any time you get a top-10 win, it's going to give you extra edge, next time you play top-10 players. Q. Now that you're seeded, first couple of rounds you're playing players that are either... SAM QUERREY: Yeah, I mean, it's nice to know -- everyone is a great player. You have got Safin floating around in there. Everyone is a great player, but it's nice to know you're not going to draw a top-32 guy in the first round or second round, especially the first round. Every Slam before this I had the same chances as anyone qualifying to draw Federer or Nadal first round. Q. Is there something about, you were talking about beating Roddick, just in general about after you have beaten somebody, just about everybody knowing, you knowing and him knowing that you can beat him. Does that kind of change the way you feel walking onto a court with the guy, who you've beaten before or maybe you've beaten once? SAM QUERREY: A little bit. I mean, he has still beaten me three times, you know. I only have beaten him once there. He still has the edge. Definitely gives me the belief, you know, if I do play him again, you know, or that, hey, I've done this before. I've got a shot to win this. It also helps if you play Federer or Nadal. Andy's beaten those guys. Hey, he did it, I beat him, why can't I beat those guys? So it kind of gives you that extra edge against them, too. Q. And they also know you've done it? SAM QUERREY: Yeah. Q. Did you learn anything tactically, in terms of winning that match that you might be able to play here? SAM QUERREY: I mean, you've got to tactically go out -- for the first part I go out and serve big and control the point with my forehand, move the guy side to side. You have to sometimes need to switch up things against everyone. You need to play differently against Andy than you would Murray or Federer or John Isner or whoever. Q. Did you have to fight through traffic to get here today? SAM QUERREY: Yeah, I barely made my practice time. Q. So you drove down -- SAM QUERREY: I drove from New Haven last night. Q. You just had... SAM QUERREY: The hotel took me like an hour and a half to get here today. Pain. Q. So you missed your practice? SAM QUERREY: No, I made it on time. Just barely. End of FastScripts |
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