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DAVIS CUP BY BNP PARIBAS WORLD GROUP QUARTERFINALS: FRANCE v U.S.A.April 7, 2012Mike BryanBob BryanJim CourierROQUEBRUNE-CAP-MARTIN, FRANCE BRYAN‑BRYAN/Llodra‑Benneteau THE MODERATOR: Questions, please. Q. Everybody talks about a home tie being great. You are now 10‑0 at home. Mike, you're 2‑0 when you don't play with Bob. Talk about being away. MIKE BRYAN: We've played every away tie on dirt. We're pretty comfortable on the clay. It's maybe a little easier to focus sometimes on the road. You kind of go into a zone. You block out the crowd. We kind of just come together more, pull our hats down and try to focus on our tennis. I thought we came in today and played a really solid match, especially on our serves. Not being down a breakpoint against a tough team on dirt is a great stat for us. It wasn't flashy. Q. As John was saying after the match yesterday, he woke up and felt ready to go. Do you always feel that way, too, especially having to wait a day? BOB BRYAN: Yeah. I mean, I don't think we ever sleep that well before a Davis Cup match. This wasn't any different. MIKE BRYAN: I slept well. BOB BRYAN: Mike said he pieced together two hours. MIKE BRYAN: I took an Ambien at 5 in the morning because I was struggling. BOB BRYAN: We put in a good workweek. It seems like this matches creep up on you really quick. Jim had a great game plan. He kept us calm. He hasn't played a lot of doubles in his career, but he sees it very well and he was able to help us a lot. CAPTAIN COURIER: Beat you guys. MIKE BRYAN: 1‑0. Q. (Question for Captain Courier regarding the American team playing on clay.) CAPTAIN COURIER: I think when you think about American tennis in general, I think you would be right to say that by and large clay is our least favorite surface. But I think if you look at these guys to my left, their record on clay, they're comfortable on the surface. Then you look at the players we have to choose from today, we have players that like the surface. I think we're pretty capable on all surfaces. But I don't think the French or the Swiss or the Chileans or Colombians have made bad choices to play us how they've played us. But we come ready to play, we come ready to fight, and we win or we lose, but we're ready. Q. Mike, you said you didn't face a breakpoint. How much pride do you take in that? MIKE BRYAN: Yeah, I mean, I thought we both served a high percentage. That's always key to not facing a breakpoint. Then we threw in a lot of plays, didn't give them the same look. We usually don't do a lot of full switches, but we were doing that like from the first point. BOB BRYAN: No double‑faults. MIKE BRYAN: I don't think we had any double‑faults. We were pretty happy. We got right out of the gates with a break. We're good frontrunners. It was just a good day. Q. (Indiscernible.) BOB BRYAN: I mean, we were ready for a dogfight. You know, it wasn't an easy match. It was three straight sets, but that last set, if that gets away from us, then we're still out there. I just thought we did a great job of not letting the crowd get too loud. Sometimes when you're playing away, you get a little sloppy, you can get hit with a tidal wave of applause. You're always just focused on kind of silencing them before they got too loud, with good serves and good returns. Q. What did you take from Patrick McEnroe about playing on clay? CAPTAIN COURIER: I definitely think that playing on all surfaces when you're in development is very important because it can showcase weaknesses. You can eliminate them when you are young. When I was at Bollettieri's Tennis Academy, we would play some days on the same afternoon on clay, hard court, and indoor fast court. It shows you where your weaknesses are when you are exposed to all different speeds. Clay is an excellent tool to learn patience and to learn how to play chess because you have to work more for the points. I believe with Patrick's philosophy that our players need to be exposed to clay early, because I was. Q. Jim, can you talk about how you're feeling tomorrow with John taking the court tomorrow against Jo. CAPTAIN COURIER: Sure. Well, the way John played yesterday will give him confidence. It gives us, the team, confidence for sure. He's going to have to come out and play at that level to have a chance to beat Jo, who is a fantastic player and who will be inspired, I'm sure, for sure tomorrow. We look forward to the battle. We're ready to play both matches tomorrow. Ryan is going to be ready for the fifth match against Gilles. We anticipate a long day. We anticipate a serious fight on our hands from the French team. We're looking forward to that. That's what we're here for. We're here to leave it all on the court and see who the better team is. Q. The Fed Cup team play games after dinner and stuff like that. Are you hanging together? What are you doing? Talking tennis?  CAPTAIN COURIER: What do they play, like Mahjong? Q. I believe they play charades. CAPTAIN COURIER: Charades? MIKE BRYAN: Yeah, we're watching the Masters. We didn't play any cards this week. Sometimes we play a lot of cards. We haven't had a lot of time. We have been practicing morning and night, massage and eating, so... I'm sure if we win tomorrow, play a little cards, huh? Keep the tradition. CAPTAIN COURIER: There has been some casino action. I can neither confirm or deny that. BOB BRYAN: Yeah. MIKE BRYAN: John has been cleaning up. CAPTAIN COURIER: We can neither confirm or deny that. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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