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U.S. OPEN

September 11, 2011

Lisa Raymond

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK

HUBER-RAYMOND/King-Shvedova
4-6, 7-6, 7-6

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. Congratulations. How do you feel to reclaim the No. 1 ranking?
LIEZEL HUBER: Wow. I'm speechless, really. I think that ranking definitely doesn't define you as a person. We have a ranking system and that is great, but -- and it's definitely I think a goal of everybody to be No. 1, but it's definitely not been my goal.
My goal has been to play with Lisa and reach success with Lisa. So I think that goal is achieved to some extent, and we're gonna keep working hard through the rest of the year. So I think the ranking, you know, is sweet. It's nice.
But this US Open title is much bigger for me today than the ranking.

Q. You guys seemed to handle the big occasions a little bit better than Vania and Yaroslava. Can you just talk about getting through those two tiebreakers to win the title?
LISA RAYMOND: Well, I mean, I think that's probably one of our biggest assets as a team is our experience. You know, we have numerous titles and numerous Grand Slams and we've been in these positions before.
Yes, they were the defending champs, you know, and they have two Grand Slams and they've done well, but, I mean, we have years and years and years of being, you know, in finals of slams, you know, winning the championships, you know, being down breaks in the third set to win or lose a slam.
So I think we just, you know, we really relied on our experience today and sticking together. You know, and also, you know, with a bit of grace of God a little bit of a rain delay, we kind of, you know, changed it up a little bit after that rain delay.
You know, we just really just stuck together, even when we were down when they were serving for the match. Just grinded it out, and now we're sitting here as US Open champions.

Q. Talking about grinding it out...
LISA RAYMOND: Hi, Mr. Kozlowski. How are you?

Q. All right. So you're down there, about to lose that match in the second set, in straits.
LISA RAYMOND: Uh-huh.

Q. There is a miraculous 2-3 desperation lob, you throw it up, and all of a sudden Charlie Oliver comes out of retirement and hits your backhand volley winner. That seemed to be a turnaround point. Was it?
LISA RAYMOND: You know, it was a huge point. Liezel made an unbelievable get on -- you know, Slava had an overhead that she probably got tight on, and Liezel ran it down and then we finished off the point.
You know, I think that they knew that we weren't going away. I think that they knew that they were gonna have to win that match today. We weren't gonna give it to them.
You know, with the combination of them getting a little tight and us hanging there, you know, it was huge. It was huge for us to get back in that set, in that match.
LIEZEL HUBER: At that point 6-4, 5-4 to them changing sides, I'm looking up at the scoreboard and I'm thinking, Jeez, this is gonna be really disappointing losing 6-4, 6-4 right here.
Um, and -- yeah, I didn't tell you that but -- are you looking at the TV or saying wow because -- and I'm thinking, This is not good. This is a US Open final. You want to play your best tennis, but we were just struggling today.
I think they're a team that we've lost to before, and we've actually felt like we played -- probably the time we played them before we played a better match than we did today. But today was kinda what we're talking about, just fighting and having each other's back and just kind of grinding it.
Doesn't matter how ugly it got, the base part of it all was the tiebreak at the end. We actually played free. That was probably the part of the entire match that we felt like this is how we played the whole US Open.
LISA RAYMOND: Uh-huh.
LIEZEL HUBER: So in a nice way it's nice to end that way at least.

Q. You two have stayed with the times, you're ageless, but you do it kind of with an old-school format of a game: serve, volley, chip, charge, fundamental doubles. What's that mean to the two of you to win playing doubles midcourt, forecourt, going in, serve and volley?
LIEZEL HUBER: I think it's nice, it's like satisfactory for us to win today knowing that our game plan works. Many times we get beat by girls that hit very big. I mean, just an example would be like Kuznetsova when she's on fire. I mean, gosh, we're just ducking.
But having said that, this whole tournament we stuck to the game plan serving and volleying. I'm not as much of a serve and volleyer as Lisa is.

Q. Nobody is.
LIEZEL HUBER: But I force myself to keep playing aggressive. I think that for the game of doubles it's kinda cool going, Oh, okay, we won the US Open by playing this game plan. It can still be done.
Although the girls are much stronger and much better now from the back and you don't need to play doubles per se, I think that's the satisfactory thing about winning perhaps today, that two oldies can do it coming in.

Q. You win this thing every five years. Do you know that?
LISA RAYMOND: Me?

Q. Liezel.
LISA RAYMOND: Liezel?

Q. Every five years you've won it, '06, '01, and I believe -- somebody look that stat up. Check that.
LIEZEL HUBER: Oh, okay. That's nice. I will be done. I won't be here in five years' time, that's for sure.

Q. Did you take any extra gratification after losing such a close final to them last year? It was kind of a similar match, down to the wire.
LIEZEL HUBER: Yeah, they were very happy after they won last year, and I wanted to feel that happy. You know, that is probably not taking that happiness away from them, but I envied that. When they won last year they were so happy.
I truly felt that out there today. So whether it was them -- I mean, maybe that's sweet victory, but it didn't matter. I felt that they had out there, and that's all I envied, is having that feeling.

Q. The men do the Davis Cup with a doubles team. Would you like to have that with the Fed Cup, where the two of you are playing Fed Cup doubles as the team?
LISA RAYMOND: I mean, I don't think -- I think that that's just kind of how it's recently really been with the Davis Cup. I mean, because of the Bryans. I mean, obviously you're certainly -- I mean, that's a point every tie, really.

Q. Yes.
LIEZEL HUBER: Maybe when we've won a hundred titles together maybe then yes, we could justify it.
LISA RAYMOND: Unfortunately, it's just not -- I mean, you have to, you know, you have to kind of worry a bit about that third, having that third singles player.
If they could have five on the team that's a different story, but with four...
LIEZEL HUBER: Hopefully we could be the team for the Olympics. That would be the great thing.
LISA RAYMOND: Yeah.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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U.S. OPEN

September 11, 2011

Liezel Huber

Lisa Raymond