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BARCLAYS ATP WORLD TOUR FINALSNovember 22, 2011Mardy FishLONDON, ENGLAND J. TSONGA/M. FisH THE MODERATOR: Questions for Mardy. Q. Strange match. Two big servers indoors. Nine breaks of serve. Can you explain it? MARDY FISH: I can explain my side a little bit probably. I mean, we both served well. We both handled our serve games well. So, yeah, that was a little weird. Obviously starting out the match with three breaks of serve in a row, that didn't happen the first time we played and probably won't happen again. It was an interesting match in that aspect. But, you know, the scoreline was relatively what it should have been as far as how I played, how I felt, how he played and I'm sure how he felt. Q. The early part of the year you're winning first sets like that. They've got away of late. What's gone missing? MARDY FISH: Well, a lot. Just in the past month or so, what happens when you have injuries is you lose a little bit of confidence. You lose a little bit of confidence in your shot selection, you lose confidence just because you can't practice as much or play as many matches and have that type of feeling that you normally do. I felt a lot different today than I did, say, at the US Open when we played. I mean, that was as good as I was going to feel physically and mentally and confidence‑wise. When you can't prepare the way you want to, it's hard. I've been dealing with a couple things for the past 25 days or so that just don't allow you to do the things you want to do. I mean, I wasn't able to practice more than an hour since Paris on the court in a row. You know, I go out and play a match two days ago with Rafa, and you can imagine how I felt the next morning. You know, he puts it on you physical anyways. I mean, I didn't feel great. It's hard. It's disappointing because, you know, this is such a great event. You work so hard to get here for 10 months, 10 and a half months. I get all the way here and I couldn't do the things that I wanted to do before and prepare the way that I prepared basically for every tournament almost up until this one. It can be argued this is one of the biggest ones. So it's just very disappointing. Q. You had a fairly long exchange with the umpire at one stage. Was that part of the general frustration you were feeling? Anything sort of specific? MARDY FISH: No, wasn't anything specific. Carlos has been in the chair for a lot of my matches. He's seen good sides and bad sides of me. That was probably a good side, though. It was a friendly exchange. I told him that I loved him, if you go back to the tape (smiling). Q. Looking ahead, you have one match left. How will you approach that one against Roger? Just go out there and have a bit of fun in a sense? MARDY FISH: That's hard to do. That's really hard to do, to be honest, to just say, you know, Just enjoy the experience, Go out there, and You got nothing to lose, and Go for it all. It's really not how it works. You have a respect level for yourself to say, I care a lot about this. I care that I want to win, more than just saying, Yeah, let's just go out there and swing from the hip and see what happens. You know, I feel like I can win. I felt like I could win both the matches I already played, and I didn't. So we'll see how I turn up tomorrow. But, yeah, I mean, you're going to have to pry me off the court to not be able to compete in an event like this. I worked very hard. I worked very hard this past year, these past two years, made a lot of sacrifices.  These are the rewards, is playing in an event like this. That's why I say, it's very disappointing, you know, to not be able to play at the level that I would like to play at. Q. You mentioned being out of the rhythm with the injuries you've had lately. Having said that, when you look back the last couple matches, do you feel 1‑1, maybe 2‑0 if you would have won the first set today? MARDY FISH: That's hard to say today. He won six games in a row. I mean, I broke him first game in the second. You lose that set, you break him, you hold there, all of a sudden you can turn the momentum a little bit. But it's hard to say if I would have won the breaker, I would have won the match. Certainly could have won the breaker two days ago and then obviously would have won the match. I was extremely pleased with, you know, the way that that match went. Anytime you can take someone like him to a third‑set breaker in an event like this, and obviously these guys want to win, want to do well, everybody does. Obviously I was bummed out that I had lost, but pretty pleased with the way that my body held up there in that match. So, yeah, I mean, I certainly feel like I could be 1‑1 without a doubt. And today's a winnable match for me. Just Jo has got a lot of confidence. He's a great player. I enjoy playing against him just because I like kind of his style, the way he goes about points, the way that he plays. There's no nonsense about anything. He's a fun player to play. Q. You talked respectfully about this tournament. It has another two years in London. Who knows after that. There's at least one American venue being talked about. How important would it be for boosting tennis in America for this event to go back to America for a few years? MARDY FISH: I don't know. That's probably a good question. I think it's in a really good place right now. There has been an American in this event the past 25 years. But the past 10 years or so, there's usually only been one. The others have been European. I think it's nice that the British have a player in this event. The rest of the players are European, except for me. They love tennis here. I love playing in this country because they know so much about tennis. They're very respectful obviously. Two nights ago I'm assuming that Rafa's their guy. But you don't really feel that. They're very respectful. You enjoy playing in that atmosphere. So I think it's in a pretty good spot right now. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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