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DAVIS CUP BY BNP PARIBAS WORLD GROUP QUARTERFINALS: SPAIN v U.S.A.July 8, 2011Jim CourierAndy RoddickAUSTIN, TEXAS D. FERRER/A. Roddick THE MODERATOR: We'll open it up to questions. Q. Andy, how do you feel right now? Stunned? ANDY RODDICK: Well, it's done. I think I have too much respect for Ferrer to be stunned. The guy is No. 6 in the world for a reason. He played well. I thought I played pretty well for the first two sets. The third set got away from me a little bit. You know, I feel like I left one out there in that first set. But, I mean, he played well. He was returning everything. You know, he beat me tonight. Q. Jim, can you give your assessment of the first day. CAPTAIN COURIER: Sure. Well, obviously credit should go to the Spanish team. Those guys played two great matches. Mardy and Andy laid it out there as much as they could today and those guys just had the answers. Felt like a little bit of an uphill battle along the way. Felt like we had some good looks and didn't quite close when we needed to. That's more a testament to what the Spaniards brought to the table rather than the other way around. I've seen Andy play a lot of matches and I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone return his serve as consistently as Ferrer did today, put balls close to the line. The first match, a lot of great serving, pressure from Feliciano. It is what it is. Obviously, we would prefer the score be reversed. We have a job to do the rest of the way. Bob and Mike will be ready to put us into Sunday tomorrow. Q. Any thoughts about the surface? Questioning it in your own mind? CAPTAIN COURIER: Happy with the surface. Happy with the balls, yeah. Q. What has to happen for the Americans? Is it too late for us to win this thing? CAPTAIN COURIER: No. It's a best-of-five. We've lost the first two matches. We can sweep the next three and advance to the semifinals. Q. I noticed the Spanish team had all of their guys out there watching. Do you think it would have made a difference if you had the Bryan brothers and Fish out there watching you? ANDY RODDICK: Yeah, that was probably it. I mean, you know, I'm not going to question what Bob and Mike do to get ready for a match. Whatever they do do has worked very well for them throughout their careers. If I can't play a match without two more sets of eyeballs on me, then I'm the one with the problem. I don't think that has anything to do with the tennis match that took place today. Q. Andy, obviously you had to wait quite a while. First match was four hours. How hard is that? Also, with Mardy losing, what kind of pressure does that add? ANDY RODDICK: Well, the second match is probably the tougher one to play just from a scheduling standpoint. I mean, you could be an hour and a half on the court or you could be five hours on the court. At the end of the four set, they're in a breaker. I could be on the court in 15 minutes. It took another hour and 20 minutes. It's hard, but it's no different than what we do on tour throughout the year. Yeah, I mean, there's pressure on me. But I've played that 0-1 match 12 times in my career. I've done well most of the time. I didn't get it done today. That's it. Q. Can you talk about the mindset, trying to win three straight, where mentally the team has to be. ANDY RODDICK: Obviously it's an uphill battle. We're not going to be the favorites down 0-2. We're not out of this. I don't think Bob and Mike have lost to Verdasco/Lopez. I think Mardy has a winning record against Ferrer. I'm 7-1 against Lopez. One match at a time. We can still do this. Q. Being up in both sets, was there anything that he did differently or was it just his return game that kind of surprised you? ANDY RODDICK: Well, 'surprised me'? He has a reputation for being one of the best returners in the world. First two sets, I mean, a couple points go either way. Quarter of an inch on the baseline call, they wait another second to challenge, that's it. Literally we talk about a game of inches all the time. That's one of our favorite cute little phrases to use. But I think today that was the case. Then once you're down two sets, I think you definitely try to force it a little bit more. I think I tried to win the entire match in the third set. That was tough. He's especially tough down two sets just because he's so physical. We were having rallies that were 30, 40 balls long. The guy doesn't get enough respect. He's been a top-10 player for eight years now. He's made the finals of Masters. He's beaten Rafa. He's beaten everybody. The guy can play tennis, and he played well today. Q. Andy, any thoughts on either the results of this, given it's in your hometown, or what you observed from the home crowd today? ANDY RODDICK: Well, being that it's here doesn't change anything. I mean, it doesn't change it. 0-2 is 0-2 no matter where you are. I love Austin, but it can't change numbers, especially when we lose two matches. It's disappointing. But what are you going to do? You get the boys to go out and get a win tomorrow. Hopefully they'll field some of the pressure to close on Sunday. Like I said, Mardy has beaten Ferrer more than he's lost to him and I have a good record also. So we get tomorrow and it's another day. Q. Talk about the Bryans, how money they are, what it's like to have them at your back going into tomorrow. CAPTAIN COURIER: Andy should talk about them. He's been with them more than I have. ANDY RODDICK: I mean, they're the best team in the world. I don't think it's even a discussion. I don't think you'd find someone who would disagree with that. They're very good at what they do. I certainly wouldn't want another team out there for us tomorrow, you know, to keep us in this thing. They'll go out and they'll play well. I mean, Verdasco and Lopez are going to have to play an extremely high level if they want a chance to win. You know, fingers crossed. CAPTAIN COURIER: Assuming Lopez plays, which is no guarantee. We'll find out an hour before match time tomorrow. Q. Andy, obviously it's not over and there's still a chance you could have a shot to clinch this tie. Considering the circumstances of being here, how tough is that loss? ANDY RODDICK: I feel like I answered that. It's tough. I mean, any Davis Cup loss is tough 'cause it's not just your loss. If I lose at Wimbledon, it's on me. I've had plenty of articles written about me, and it's tough. I don't beat myself up over that. It motivates me. But when I let down my team, it hurts more. These losses hurt more than my selfish losses. Q. The late challenge that you mentioned. Obviously it didn't appear to take any kind of emotional toll on you because you came out strong. Talk about how big a letdown that was. ANDY RODDICK: It's tough. Let me preface this with they did not do anything wrong. They were well within their rights. I just wish there was some sort of time rule on it. There's not, so they can do whatever they want. Costa was heads up and did the right thing and it ended up winning them the first set. It was the smart thing to do. I walked from past the baseline, I was almost to the chair. You know, that's tough. I tried to put it behind me. I got off to a good start in the second set. But the first set, I felt like that was mine to win. Q. Andy, you obviously have respect for your opponent. What would you like to improve individually about your game going into Sunday? ANDY RODDICK: I didn't hit the ball too bad. Probably a couple inopportune errors. You have to force against him. The guy's so fast. I was forcing a little bit. When you play high risk, you're going to make more errors. It's tough to play high risk and make less errors. If you throw Hail Mary's, you're going to throw more interceptions, too. That's why you have a run game. I felt like I hit the ball pretty well. I just got to play better on those big points. He played them better than I did tonight. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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