|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
ROGERS CUP MENAugust 12, 2012Karsten BraaschBob BryanMike BryanTORONTO, ONTARIO BRYAN‑BRYAN/Granollers‑Lopez THE MODERATOR: Bob and Mike Bryan, the 2012 Rogers Cup doubles champions, who have also qualified for the Barclays ATP World Championships titles with this final. Questions. Q. Congratulations. Your opponents seemed to have a different playing style. Could you talk about figuring out how to beat them today? BOB BRYAN: Yeah, you know, that's the way that a lot of teams are playing now, serving and staying back. You didn't see that ten years ago, but as more singles players have entered the doubles game in the last seven, eight years, you know, 70% of guys are starting to serve and stay back. They're doing it really well. You know, as you saw in the match, they're very close to the net for their volleys, and it's hard to really expose like a weakness. Yeah, I mean, we have a lot strategy, a lot of game plans going out on the court. Obviously I was using the lob early to try to go over their head. I used that probably 15 to 20 times in a row. It worked sometimes. We had to switch up our strategy a little bit towards the end, but I thought we played a pretty good match. We had the momentum big time at the beginning of the match. Could have been a 40‑minute match but they got back in it. You've got to give them a lot of credit for fighting and making that such an entertaining match. Q. Other than strategies, what else went into winning? MIKE BRYAN: Yeah, I mean, it came down to the wire there at the end. We were down match point; could have gone either way. I don't know. Maybe we're still riding high from the Olympics and we feel good. We always play better when we're happy. Right now we feel like even though it gets sticky and tough, we've been winning all the big points for the last couple weeks; we did the same today. Bob hit a big serve down 8‑9 and kind of just went our way at the end. We feel good. We've had a lot of success here in Toronto. Today was just another case. You know, never won in Montréal, but save the best for Toronto. That's nice. Q. On the point that you just said about the Olympics, now that you've won over here, explain how tough it has been to come back and win two big back‑to‑back titles. It doesn't happen that often that you have to have two such big events. BOB BRYAN: I think the toughest match of the week was the first match, because we went from the Centre Court at Wimbledon, seeing the flag go up and being on the podium, to playing at an indoor club in the middle of a long row of courts, no fans, bad lighting, bad bounces. It was a heroic effort to keep our mind together. Mike was starting to lose his cool. MIKE BRYAN: We went down a quick 5‑2. They missed a let call, line call. I said, That's it. BOB BRYAN: I thought he was going to quit. I thought he was just going to walk off the court and pull a Jeff Tarango. He took a couple steps towards the chair and I'm like, No, no, no, don't quit on me. That could have easily gotten very ugly. But we've never won a tournament in two days. We played two doubleheaders, which is wild. To win a tournament in two days is something unique. MIKE BRYAN: Yeah, we were struggling with a little bit of jet lag. You probably feel the same way. Been waking up pretty early at 4:00 in the morning. We've been popping sleeping pills, and we didn't sleep a lot last night. It takes a good week to adjust, you know, just physically get your clock set. But as I said, you kind of ride the momentum of winning the big tournament; sometimes we have done it before where we get a long streak of wins going, and wins kind of lift you and give you energy. That's what happened this week, I think. Q. I was going to ask about the Olympics. Do you mind going in a different direction? The topic local interest here is that in less than a month's time Daniel Nestor will turn 40 during the first week of the US Open. Do you mind just offering some thoughts on the rivalry you've had with him over the years and what it would be like to play tennis as a creaky old man? BOB BRYAN: Daniel Nestor is a legend. He's shown us all that's it's possible to play until you're 40. Ten years ago I think the oldest guy in the top 10 was 32, and we couldn't believe he was still playing. He is he's an incredible athlete. He's flexible. He's limber. He's still playing like he's 20 years old. That serve that he has is timeless. That serve will probably carry him until he's 50. Danny has been our biggest rival of our career. Been knocking heads for the last 14 years. Every time you step on the court with Danny you almost feel less pressure, because you know if you don't play your best tennis you're going to lose. Freeze you up to go for your shots. He's given us a lot of bitter defeats, and we've clipped him in a couple big ones a well. There is a lot of mutual respect between us and him. MIKE BRYAN: He's one of the most talented players. He's got soft hands, and as Bob said, his serve is just nasty. You don't want to see it. But he's also a great guy off the court. He's a good guy on the court. He's beaten us in a lot of tough matches and never rubbed it in. I hope we've never rubbed it in. I'm sure have. We chest bumped in his face. (Smiling.) But he's one of the most well‑liked guys on tour. He jokes around in the locker room before tough matches, big matches. We're all happy to still see him playing. I haven't heard that he wants to retire any time soon, so he's probably going for Rio. Probably going to outlast us. (Laughter.) Q. Coming into the week, we all sort of expected it to be tough for the guys that did well at the Olympics to do well here. You guys and both of the singles finalists were all involved in the last day of action at the Olympics. Do you think it was maybe overestimated, the difficulty, or do you just think the excitement of the Olympics kind of carries you through? BOB BRYAN: Lucky for us we had a Thursday start. We actually played on Friday our first match, which helped a lot to acclimate to the time change. But winning is contagious, you know. You get a little momentum and you don't have to try so hard. You don't get as nervous before a match. Everything is falling in place. Yeah, so it is tough to go from such a high at the Olympics ‑ and even at Wimbledon ‑ but this is what the tour is all about. We're used to it. No time to be satisfied or celebrate. It's always looking forward to the next week. We're going to be jumping on a flight tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. and going to Cincinnati and lacing up the sneakers again and putting it on the line. Q. Just a question about the tiebreak. I think there was one point, maybe at 6‑5, and I think it was Mike, who has a lot overheads. What goes through your head when you're in the middle of a point like that? Do you ever think of the Connors‑Krickstein point? MIKE BRYAN: Yeah. That wasn't going through my head then, but as pros, you get an overhead, you want to put it away. There is pressure there. You also don't want to miss it. Those were pretty high and deep in the court. I was trying to put everything I had into it. Bob was mad at me. He was probably like, Put it away for Christ's sake. It took me five and he finally missed it. Luckily the wind was blowing out. I was prepared to hit another ten. (Smiling.) Just another big point, crazy point that we had. We had some good points out there. You know, at the end it kind of didn't feel good. Felt like they were coming on strong, and so it was good to hold on there and win that. Q. Completely off this, curious, when a player wins the singles title at the All England they're made a member, have you all been made members there? BOB BRYAN: Not members of Wimbledon. MIKE BRYAN: I know the Woodies were made members. They won it five times in a row and they were made members right after that. I don't know their criteria, but I think it's pretty much you got to win five. I know at Queen's you win four in doubles. BOB BRYAN: You win four and then they have a vote. MIKE BRYAN: They finally made us members there, but Wimbledon is a little tougher. Two doubles, two or three mixed with an Olympics medal, I think it's good enough. BOB BRYAN: Start a campaign. Craig, Twitter campaign. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|