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ROGERS CUP MEN

August 10, 2010

Milos Raonic

TORONTO, ONTARIO

MELZER-PETZSCHNER/Pospisil-Raonic
6-2, 6-4

THE MODERATOR: Opening remarks?
VASEK POSPISIL: I didn't think we did really anything wrong. I thought they were returning really well. That probably made the difference. They found a rhythm on our serves, and it was really tough to play with their returns, I thought. I felt that was the biggest difference today. Maybe we didn't mix up our serves enough or something.
MILOS RAONIC: No, today I thought they obviously know about our match yesterday, and they didn't really take us lightly. They came out right away from the beginning play full out. They are obviously a very good team.
They won Wimbledon this year, and they've been playing well. They must be ranked high to be the fourth seeds here, so really today what we wanted to do was make sure, try to duplicate sort of yesterday, the level we had yesterday. I felt we weren't too far off. I don't think we played as well as we did yesterday, but I think that they were taking more chances of their opportunities and punishing us for more little mistakes we were making, and they were obviously there the whole time and they weren't letting up on us.
We had our flashes of good moments, but I don't think we kept it up the whole time, which cost us.

Q. How do you feel actually after yesterday evening when you won over the top two players?
MILOS RAONIC: No, obviously it's an amazing feeling, been getting probably more calls on my phone than ever before. My dad's not going to be happy with my bill. (Laughter.)
No, even back home where my sister and brother live, back in Montenegro, it was a big thing over -- the Serbian over next door, my sister's been getting calls at home about interviews about me, so I hope she's saying good things. (Laughter.)
I was a little hard on her when I was a kid, because she helped me a lot while I was growing up. So it's been a lot. I think we both dealt with it well, and we both knew that yesterday wasn't enough. We both knew that today we wanted to come out, play a good match, and just not settle for yesterday. We did what we could, and I think the guys today proved to be good, too good. Obviously they won Wimbledon this year, and they've shown why they have that high level, why they won a Grand Slam, and why they were better than us. They just played better than us today.

Q. A number of players, when they win a match like that, it's such a big victory in their young careers. They find it hard to turn around and find the same level so quickly the next day. Did you guys find it hard to get back to prepare properly after maybe the biggest night of your careers last night?
VASEK POSPISIL: Yeah, I mean -- well, one big thing is I couldn't fall asleep at all last night. It's not every day you get to go and play against Nadal and Djokovic on center court.
So it was definitely -- I had an emotional strain, like it was definitely tiring the whole day yesterday. I fell asleep really late.
But yeah, yeah, as soon as we got up this morning, we were trying to concentrate on today's match, trying to carry over our form that we had yesterday. But like Milos said, the little mistakes we made, they made us pay for that.
But, yeah, it was a huge, huge day last night, anyways.
MILOS RAONIC: No, I feel we did what we could, and the guys today, they obviously deserve much credit and praise for the level of their playing.
I think they showed why they beat us, and it was on many things. They took care of their serves better. They punished us on our service games. And the fact that maybe yesterday did have a big part to play in it, how we did play yesterday and getting all that emotional even overspilled today. People are still talking about that rather than, Oh -- last night, before our match, we're hearing, Oh, you're playing Nadal and Djokovic. Good night. Go have fun.
Today, nobody told us once, Oh, you're playing Petzschner-Melzer. Go have fun with it. It was, Oh, good job last night, good job last night, good job last night, that was amazing last night.
So, yeah, it definitely was going through our minds. But I speak for myself on that especially, but once I got on the court and started my warmup today and started preparing for how I wanted to play against these guys, I knew what my job was for the day, and I don't think I executed it well enough and obviously got punished today.

Q. Obviously Melzer and Petzschner, a big team, as you said, has won Wimbledon, can you talk a little bit about the difference between playing a team with less chemistry, like last night, as opposed to a team with much more chemistry and today?
VASEK POSPISIL: Yeah, I mean, you could tell that these guys played together before. I mean, the way they were communicating, it felt like they -- they really knew what they were doing out there. They were very tough to play against, I felt.
But yesterday was all like a bigger adrenaline rush, you know, playing on center court. And I think we really played one of the best matches that we could have.
Yeah, I mean, they're tough. Like Milos said, you don't win Wimbledon -- if you win Wimbledon, you're not an average doubles player. You have to be really, really good. So they obviously showed us today what they were made of.
MILOS RAONIC: I feel -- the biggest difference, I felt, was these guys sort of had a set plan on what they wanted to do. They were going after their shots. They knew that right from the beginning to make us play and to go after, to go after us and to go after us in an aggressive manner and tried to overpower us and go through us rather than around us.
Yesterday, I think also because we played at a better level, you felt that they were sort of changing. They were doing one thing. You felt like they weren't always on the same page. These guys today, they knew when to cross, they knew the right moments what plays to call, they knew how we would react if we hit a kick serve, they knew they should cross and have an easy volley.
So today I felt sort of little things. If we put a ball up a little too high it wasn't getting past them. They were all over it.
Yesterday, whereas maybe the guy on the baseline would take it. Obviously they are amazing from the baseline, they're 1 and 2 in the world, but still gives us more time to prepare. Today I felt the guys rushed us more and were more on top of us the whole match.
VASEK POSPISIL: They were very, very aggressive. I felt like they were serving a little bit better maybe than Novak and Rafa last night. I felt that's maybe why they were kind of -- we were returning really well last night, but I think that's probably the difference. They were really overpowering us today, I felt.

Q. I was just wondering, how do you guys decide who plays the ad courts, and it's, for the most part, the important points are won in the ad?
VASEK POSPISIL: I guess just whoever feels the best at that moment, you know, whoever has been making some returns in that game or whoever returns better against the player that's serving at the time, or I guess whoever just feels most confident at the time will usually take the return.
MILOS RAONIC: It's a last-minute decision, sort of. We decide by how that game has gone, by if the guy -- if we feel the guy has not put in few first serves against the same guy, we know he's going to think about it if he standing on that same side, and if he just double-faulted or just force him to go there, he might be a bit more tight, and obviously that guy that has the return is going to be a bit more confident.

Q. Obviously you surprised Canadians here. What that means for you for Davis Cup in Canada?
MILOS RAONIC: Hopefully a lot more people are going to come out when we play now in September. We play here, obviously, so the word, I'm sure, has been spread around. And it's a big fan-base thing. Davis Cup is a big advantage to play at home, and with the results we had last night and hopefully we can have more today with Frank coming up tonight and more people can come out.
The atmosphere is a big difference. When you play at home, it's obviously -- when you're doubting yourself and you have 900 to 2,000 people saying, Let's go, let's go, let's go, you're not going to be, Oh, whatever. You're not going to disappoint you people. They're going to get you up.
It's a big thing if people in Canada become more aware about the tennis, seeing, oh, they beat Nadal and Djokovic, more recognition, and they know we're an all-Canadian team. So the support will come to the Davis Cup events, which is going to help us out as a team, and hopefully that can carry out through many more events.
And it's not just because of this year. Hopefully we can carry it out for years to come. That's going to be a big part. If we qualify for World Cup, the crowds are a big thing. Obviously we need the level to play, but the crowds are a big thing. They inspire, motivate. And obviously if you're in a country that loves the sport, players are going to come.
And you see that with hockey here at home. It's a big thing, and we're hoping that carries over to tennis. We've done good things last night, and we're hoping we can do more good things in the years to come.
Our goal here is pretty much as ambassadors to Canada, as tennis players. So the more players we can get to come, the more people we can get going to take tennis lessons, going to training, the more players that are going to come out in the future.
And then obviously we want to make careers out of it, but that's also part of our job. We want to help this sport grow in Canada. Obviously it's something that's needed in the country. It's a big country, and we have the resources we need, and now we just need the recognition for the sport in the country.

End of FastScripts

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ROGERS CUP MEN

August 10, 2010

Vasek Pospisil

Milos Raonic