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DAVIS CUP BY BNP PARIBAS WORLD GROUP FINAL: FRANCE v SERBIADecember 5, 2010Guy ForgetMichael LlordaJo-Wilfried TsongaBELGRADE, SERBIA V. TROICKI/M. Llodra THE MODERATOR: Questions, please. Q. Michael, it seems you couldn't find your game today against Troicki. You made a lot of mistakes. What is your comment about the game? MICHAEL LLODRA: Today, it was tough for me. He was too strong at the beginning of the match until the end. I tried to do my best, but it was not enough. So, you know, it's never easy to play this kind of match. I have no regrets. I did my best today. It was not enough. That's all. Q. Captain, can you tell us about the whole match, your impressions from it? You were close after yesterday's doubles. CAPTAIN FORGET: Yes, but we knew we had two more matches to play. In the semifinals, the Czech Republic as well, they were up 2-1 and lost on Sunday. Last night we all talked about it and we knew that Gael and Michael had to play very well because if we're going to win that tie, we need one more point. We were looking for difficult matches. I think they were beyond what we expected. I think Serbia deserved to win because they were behind and they came back again. Obviously it's a great advantage to play at home. Probably if we would have played in Paris, somewhere else, things would have been maybe a little bit different. But, you know, that's the way it goes. Once again, you have to give credit to Novak and Viktor for the quality of the play they had today. Q. Captain, it looked like your players lacked confidence today, which is strange, because the pressure was on Serbia after the doubles yesterday. Can you explain that? CAPTAIN FORGET: When you have someone like Novak who is No. 3 in the world, when he plays at home in front of 20,000 people that are very, very loud, he's the favorite. I don't know if you've gone to Spain, if you play against Rafael Nadal on clay in Spain, even if you're up 2-1, the guy who is going to play against Nadal is in for a lot of trouble. I think today Novak was too good. Although Gael tried his best, and in the third set he kind of showed some good tennis, that was not enough. For the last match, you know, Viktor and Michael had a long doubles yesterday, so they were both on the same level. But I've never seen someone return as well Michael's serve as Viktor did today. All the way till the third set, I thought maybe things could have changed around, like it did in the doubles yesterday. But Viktor didn't give up and didn't miss hardly any balls. It went just one way. Q. Mr. Tsonga, do you think it would have been different if you played? JO-WILFRIED TSONGA: No, you know. I was injured. I think my partners, they did the best, and that's it. Q. Captain, do you feel safe in Serbia? CAPTAIN FORGET: Yeah, I feel very safe, yes. Q. Mr. Llodra, did you have some physical problems? You left the court between the sets. MICHAEL LLODRA: No, no, no. I had just to change, you know, something for my blister, that's all. Q. What is your real name? MICHAEL LLODRA: Joseph (laughter). Q. What do you think about the Serbian fans and the atmosphere in the Belgrade arena tonight? CAPTAIN FORGET: Well, first of all, I think you have in Belgrade a very nice arena. It's beautiful. It's very loud. And the crowd was pushing behind the Serbian players, and they were wonderful. So were the French crowd, as well. Now that it's over, the only thing I can say is always when you have a big event like this, you always have 20 or 30 idiots that are whistling every time you toss the ball. That's very frustrating. It's very unfair. These people don't need to be on a sport field anywhere. I think that kind of spoiled the pleasure that you can have on the court because you're always fighting the chair umpire to apply the rules. I've been sitting on this chair every day for between four and seven hours. Every single time there was a little point important, there was some idiot, one or two in the crowd, whistling when these guys had to throw the ball in the air. That's not very nice. I hope in the future, you will be able to get rid of these people, because most of the people were wonderful. Q. Mr. Forget, I'm sure you're aware of your responsibility regarding the fifth match. On what basis did you make the decision to play Michael instead of some other player, and do you regret now? CAPTAIN FORGET: That's a good question. I don't want to inflict that to myself right now because I think it's the easy way out to say, Would things have been different if I would have chose someone else? Maybe, but maybe not. So far this year I've trusted Michael and Gael, and sometimes Julien and Arnaud. Most of the time it worked. Michael has been in the finals at Paris Bercy. He had match point to go in the finals. He's ranked 20 in the world right now. This year he's been playing six Davis Cup matches. He's won all of them. He was fresh. He was fit. That's one of the surfaces he really likes. In my mind, that was our best chance to win the point. Obviously, you could tell me now that it was wrong. But I still believed when I had to take my decisions last night that was our best chance. What I didn't expect is Viktor to be so good. End of FastScripts |
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