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AEGON CHAMPIONSHIPS

June 7, 2010

Jamie Baker

LONDON, ENGLAND

D. ISTOMIN/J. Baker
6-1, 6-4

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. Give us your thoughts on the match.
JAMIE BAKER: Yeah, tough one. Tough start. I thought -- it's tough kind of stepping up to the level of the player, you know, that I was playing today from the usual matches. I'm played against people kind of probably from 150 to 300ish. It's a step up.
The whole kind of atmosphere of the tournament is -- to step on and actually impose what I do well, it wasn't -- unfortunately for me it wasn't really a fair reflection of how I have been playing.

Q. You certainly started to get better in the second set. It started to close up a little bit. It's almost like you needed another set, and you'd be perhaps...
JAMIE BAKER: Yeah, that's the thing. I think I said to you yesterday that it would be a question of how quickly I can adapt to the level, because playing on a court like that, as enjoyable as it is, it actually is definitely -- the court itself is bigger. It's a different perception.
So to actually, as I say, get into a position where I can actually impose what I do well does take a bit of time. It's what is frustrating, especially on a grass court.
As a classic example, I think I had -- the last two games at 30-All I had what would be a fairly basic forehand return second serve. Missed both of them.
Those are the sort of shots that if I make those, I give myself breakpoints. I actually don't think I had one breakpoint all match.

Q. You slipped a few times. Was that the surface or just the speed you were trying to play at?
JAMIE BAKER: No, I think just with the grass, it hasn't been played on. It's greener. It takes a bit of time to break in. It's just part of the grass, I think.

Q. What will you do next? What are the indications about Wimbledon?
JAMIE BAKER: I think we find out this afternoon, so everything will depend on that. So I'll play -- well, I'm in on ranking at Wimbledon quallies, so if I'm playing in that, then that would be my next tournament. I won't be able to play Eastbourne. If I'm not, then I'll play Eastbourne and Wimbledon.

Q. You've been kind of darting around the world trying to get yourself into 250, Jamie. Give us an idea what that's been like in the last two, three weeks.
JAMIE BAKER: Yeah, it's been pretty brutal, actually. I think the way I was playing I was kind of sailing into that around March time when I tore a ligament in my ankle before the Davis Cup match. So I missed six to eight weeks.
It's probably now it's kind of -- it's 100%, but since then I've actually played seven consecutive weeks. I've played three in -- let me think, two in America, one in Ecuador, another two in America, one in Italy and then back to California and back here.
Yeah, it's been tough to try to get that, but I think I was 254 this morning in my ranking. I missed it by about three points, so we'll see what happens.

Q. How close were you against Polansky?
JAMIE BAKER: 4-All in the third.

Q. 4-All in the third?
JAMIE BAKER: Yeah, lost 4 in the third.

Q. Very close.
JAMIE BAKER: Then the week before I had a match -- I was second round again, but I got comfortably beaten in that one.
I think I had three consecutive weeks in a row I had second round matches. Yeah, it's within close.

Q. If Wimbledon doesn't happen, I mean, we have a Davis Cup tie on grass straight afterwards. Is that something that you'd like to be involved in? I mean, Leon is actually sitting there watching...
JAMIE BAKER: Love to be involved, definitely. After that heartbreaking stuff of the last one. Davis Cup is probably the all element of my life I would enjoy the most. Definitely would be planning to -- not just involved in that but actually playing.

Q. Why do you enjoy Davis Cup so much when you say it's the element you enjoy the most?
JAMIE BAKER: I can't really -- I think being Scottish, I'm very patriotic, so I would carry that on to kind of playing for Great Britain.
The first time I ever played in the Ukraine I played a dead rubber, and I remember putting my shirt on and I had Great Britain on my back. I just felt -- I felt a definite buzz, felt a definite excitement to playing. I thought, that's why I've done all this work.
Since then, I've just always -- I've always loved it. Even the kind of daunting matches that I've had -- the only live rubber I played was against Nalbandian in Argentina. But my attitude towards it, because it was Davis Cup, I was able to kind of take it in my stride. Yeah. Kind of just going from there.

End of FastScripts

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