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DAVIS CUP BY BNP PARIBAS WORLD GROUP FINAL: ARGENTINA v SPAINDecember 2, 2011Juan MonacoSEVILLE, SPAIN R. NADAL/J. Monaco THE MODERATOR: Questions in Spanish. Q. Rafa has been here recently, and for him it was a brutal result. I think that we believe that there was a lot of difference between you. How do you feel and what is the key for you to have lost with such a big difference? JUAN MONACO: The score, it gives a big difference, but the development of the match is different to the result. I felt I was playing well, but I had Rafa Nadal in front of me. He was really good. He was in really good shape. Maybe we speculated a bit with the idea that he was lacking in rhythm and that the London Masters left him tired, but I know him so well. Deep down, I knew that in the big moments he grows, he's a big player, and he gives his best. So I knew he was going to play that way because I know him. But he played so well today. I know him very well. I train with him a lot. That's the feeling I got. Obviously I'm very sad, because nobody likes to lose this way. But I am also aware that in front of me I had one of the best tennis players in history. Q. What part of your game strategy could you develop? What other strategy couldn't you develop in front of that big player? JUAN MONACO: I had talked about this before. So the idea is to start with a high rhythm, to test him, to see what his position in the court was, if he was gonna be in what shape in the court. That was my idea. But he was very solid from the beginning. He recovered the balls really well. The court was very heavy. I felt I had to win the point, two points, three points, I thought I was going to win it. With any other player, you think that the point was going to finish earlier than that, but Rafa is the way he is. He fights hard. He defends hard. He defends very high. You have to start all over again. You have to start from the beginning when he defends here. That is very tiring for me. Maybe I could have had a better serve. I thought he was gonna have a mistake, but he had very few mistakes in serving. I didn't have any chance. Whenever I tried to recover a ball, he was better and better. Maybe I should have brought him closer to the net. I had better chances when I managed to get him further ‑‑ closer to the net, but it's not easy to break his balance to have drops, to have drops for him, because he's very agile. So, well, from the beginning to the end, I did my best. I gave my best. But I had in front of me a great opponent. Q. Have you had any epic moments? Sometimes you have managed to get both crowds standing for you. What was the atmosphere? JUAN MONACO: Amazing, impressive, unique. If you ask me if I enjoyed it, yes, I did, a lot. It's a Davis Cup final. I was playing against the biggest in the history of tennis in clay courts. I really enjoyed it. Whether I played my best tennis‑‑ well, it was hard for me to play my best tennis. I thought that in front of me I had a very tough opponent, and living this moment for me is unique. It's very important. Q. The court, Rafa said that the court is slow. Was that bad for you? JUAN MONACO: Maybe, yes. It is not an excuse, okay? The court is slow. In a faster court, my serve would have been more aggressive. My shots would have been more damaging, especially my flat shots would have been more dangerous than here. And maybe he wouldn't have recovered so many points as he has today if the court was faster. For me the court became smaller and smaller, but the court is heavy. But it's heavy for both players, so it's not an excuse and I'm not going to get into that. Q. You have talked about the atmosphere. We have talked about epic moments, especially the one when you fell down on the floor like an archer and ended up with Rafa winning that point. Did that impact your feelings, those eternal shots, like it was a battle of gladiators? JUAN MONACO: Imagine if I have to fall on the court to win a point knowing I can injure myself. Imagine I suffered a lot. I was suffering. I was giving my best in one point because I thought I was going to win it. You feel you're gonna win it three times before the point is finally defined. I was suffering because I was thinking, well, how can I get one point out of this guy? That's the feeling I had many times. For me not winning that point, mentally it's like you get a little bit down. It's not that you give up. But after that happening, it's difficult to focus again, it's difficult to feel a winner again after all that, especially if you end up falling and if your legs hurt, if your hand hurts, and you can't even grab the racquet again. Q. No. 1, how are you doing in your wrist? When did you hit yourself? Because we couldn't see it. What do you think should happen with another hypothetical match between Nadal and Del Potro? What does Del Potro have to do? JUAN MONACO: The thing with the wrist is when I fell down on the floor, I didn't fall very well. I had a little bit of a wrist problem for a while, and my left wrist is a bit more sensitive to a hit or to the pain, so I have a left wrist problem. Juan Martin hypothetically playing against Rafa, Rafa is hard. He is the best of history. I'm not joking. He is really difficult. He has been seven times champion of Monte‑Carlo, six Roland Garros I think, maybe I'm mistaken, but he is difficult. Obviously I trust Juan Martin because he managed to win him before. It wasn't clay, but Juan Martin has a game that can set him off balance. He is really good with his right, with his forehand, but Rafa showed today that he is at a very high level. Q. Is the wrist problem a problem for you to play on Sunday? JUAN MONACO: I hope not. I hope not. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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