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U.S. OPENSeptember 9, 2012Filip PeliwoNEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK P. PELIWO/L. Broady THE MODERATOR: Questions, please. Q. Well, how does it feel to win two in a row? FILIP PELIWO: Well, honestly, I have to say I'm a lot more relieved now than I was at Wimbledon. At Wimbledon it was just excitement, and right now I just got a huge weight off my shoulders, I think. I'm very happy, as well. I'm just happy I finished the year the way I have right now. It's a great feeling, especially at US Open and NewYork, one of the biggest, busiest cities in the world and biggest tournament in the world, I think. It's great. I'm just happy I can go back home with a champion's trophy. Q. What comes next for you, do you think, now that you've won these two Grand Slam titles? FILIP PELIWO: Well, I'm definitely done juniors. I'm quite sure I am. I will be going to the pros now, doing futures and challengers, those sort of tournaments. Right now I'm going to be going to Montreal after I'm done with everything here, and then to Davis Cup. I will be a hitting partner there. From there I think I'm going into some futures tournaments right away. I'm looking forward to that. It's going to be exciting. This is my first time as a hitting partner for the Davis Cup team. Very proud to be on that part of the team. It's great. Q. How hard do you think it will be translating these wins at the junior level to the pros? FILIP PELIWO: It's definitely a huge challenge. I have seen a lot of juniors before that have had success at this level and never really translated into the pro circuit. So it's definitely looking good for me, I think, right now, but there is no guarantees. I'm just going to have to keep working hard and giving my best every day in training and then every match and try to develop my game as much as possible. I'm going to have to strengthen up physically and mentally, as well. It's going to be an interesting few years, I think, seeing how I develop. But I think that I'm quite confident that I can achieve big success on the pro tour if I just stay healthy, I think, and keep working hard. Q. Can you talk a little bit about today's match? It was obviously extremely close right to the end. Do you think your experience might have been the difference? FILIP PELIWO: I definitely think that was a factor in it. I knew what to do when it came down to the wire, and just we were separated by a couple of points here or there. I think we were both tight. Just, as I said, it was a couple points here and there. Just tried to keep holding my serve after I got broken back. Just to get it to 5‑All or 4‑All, wherever I had the chance to break. Brought it back in that service game at 5‑All. He made a mistake on break point. I think I just tried to keep putting pressure on him and not give him too many free points. I think that's how I let him back into the match is by missing too much. Once I got that break I knew what I had to do. I had the same situation sort of in Wimbledon. It was nothing new to serve it out. I just tried to relax and not think that I was serving for the tournament and for the championship and for the No. 1 spot and all of that. I just said, Okay, it's just a regular match; 6‑5‑up, no worries. Serve it out, first serves in, and that sort of thing. I just tried to stay calm and do what I needed to do. Q. We talked a bit yesterday about how there probably wouldn't be much of a crowd, but as it turned out there was a big gap between the men's semis and the women's final. How did that feel? You had a lot of people cheering for you. FILIP PELIWO: Yeah, well at first it started out with a really small crowd with everyone people being at the men's semifinal. But at the beginning I'm quite sure I had a large percentage of the people cheering for me, and then it kind of evened out as people came from the men's semifinal. It was a great atmosphere, I think. Everyone tried to encourage both of us. The Brits tried to encourage Liam; the Canadians tried to encourage me obviously. They were great. I enjoyed it very much despite being nervous. Yeah, it was better than I expected, for sure. Q. When you made the final at the Australian Open, I'm not sure how many people really knew who you were at that point. FILIP PELIWO: Not that many. Q. At the end of this year you have won two Grand Slams now. Did you expect these kind of things from yourself at all? FILIP PELIWO: It's tough to expect this kind of year. Honestly I just went in hoping to get maybe a great result at one tournament, semifinal or a final, and I would think that a win would be great. Honestly, I didn't expect anything like this going into this year. I hadn't had great results last year. I had maybe one or two at some tournaments like Orange Bowl at the end of the year. That's when I really got it started. But throughout the whole year hadn't really been anything special. Yeah, I mean, honestly I'm as surprised as anyone else of my results. Q. What and why did you think that?  What was the main difference between last year and this year? It has been a very successful year for you and you seem more mature handling the pressure so well. FILIP PELIWO: Honestly, it's tough to pinpoint exactly what the reason is. I think it's just a bunch of factors. My hard work is paying off. I'm finally confident in my game, and I think, as you said, I have matured as a player a lot more. And my knowledge of the game, when it comes down to big points, is a lot better. I know what to do when I'm in that situation more so than before. I believe that this year when I tried to do something I executed a lot better than last year. For example, when I go for my serve and go for a big serve, it goes in a lot more than I did before when I go for a tough shot like a defensive shot, for example, I'm able to stay in the point a lot more, I think, and just play clutch a lot more than I was last year. That's really all I think it is. Also, I think that my mental strength has improved a lot. I'd break down a lot more last year. I had trouble with my attitude. That never helps, obviously. That's about it. Honestly, I don't really have an explanation for exactly why I'm doing so much better this year than last year. Those are kind of just guesses to what it is. All I can really do is work hard and hope for the best. Q. Will things change at home for you when you come back? FILIP PELIWO: I think not as much as they changed right after Wimbledon right after I won, but there is definitely going to be a lot of people cheering for me and everyone trying to put together a celebration, because I don't think I got a chance to celebrate after Wimbledon. We'll see how it goes back home. Q. Define "celebration." FILIP PELIWO: I don't know. Just recognizing the result and maybe having a couple days off eventually. I'm not sure exactly what I'm doing. I'm probably not going to be able to have any days off right away, but hopefully soon enough I'll be able to get some time to rest. Q. How about tonight? FILIP PELIWO: Oh, no. Tonight I'm flying right out and probably going to sleep right when I get home. I'm quite tired. I won't be able to do anything tonight. Q. You win the first set and then he comes back in the second set; you made some decisions there. How did you feel in that second set? You let him in. FILIP PELIWO: Well, as you said, I let him in. I knew that I kind of let him get back into the match and that that messed up my chance to close it out there being up a break and 40‑15 at 2‑1. I just tried to forget about it actually. I knew I messed up. I knew it was more because of my game just dropping and me losing my feel on my shots. I knew that once I got it back that it would become a tough match because he was obviously playing better, but that I would get my chances eventually. I tried to take them when I got the chance and got it at 5‑All, so I'm glad I didn't mess that one up. Q. Can you talk a little bit about your experience with juniors and tournaments now that you're leaving them behind? FILIP PELIWO: Well, I'll definitely misssome of it, but I'm excited to get back out into the pro tour and get that career started. Well, continue it and be more of a full‑time pro. It's been great, especially this year with my results, to be playing on the junior tour. Made a lot of friends over the past few years that I probably won't see for a while, but the dream was always to be a pro and I'm just very excited for that. Yeah, it's going to be an interesting ‑‑well, next year especially is going to be a big year for the transitioning and just to develop my game, I think, and get used to the pro level. Q. How important was the support of your country in your tennis career? FILIP PELIWO: Well, it's definitely played a big part in my development with Tennis Canada supporting me and the National Center and providing the training and the funding, all that. Once I started doing well I had a huge wave of support from all these Canadian tennis fans and Polish tennis fans, as well. I think everyone generally. Yeah, the Canadians are all really excited about it and everyone back home is ecstatic. It's going to be nice to come back home to all that support and excitement. Q. It's been 28 years since anyone's reached all four junior Grand Slam finals. You've achieved more than some of the greats of the game now. What sort of expectations do you have? FILIP PELIWO: Well, I know that I can develop my game into a top player's level, I think, but it's really, really ‑‑it really depends on how I take the next few years, how I handle it. I think that having one more year with Tennis Canada is going to be good, because they have the experience to make the big decisions and which tournaments play, when to take my time off and to train. I've got some big expectations for myself. But at the same time, I'm not putting pressure to have great success right off the bat going into the pros. I'm going to take it step by step and get my ranking up slowly ‑‑ or quickly if I can. I'm not expecting anything too huge with that. Yeah, I'm just going to try to‑‑ as I said, all I can really do is to work as hard as I can, stay healthy, and just put in 100% effort to succeed, because it's never a guarantee. Honestly just going to try to do everything that's in my control to get my game up to the highest level. Q. Again, who is a player, ATP player, that you admired growing up? FILIP PELIWO: I always admired Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi first of all. Other guys like Patrick Rafter. Yeah, once they retired, I liked Andy Roddick a lot. Then Roger Federer. Roddick retired. Yeah, I admired all the top guys: Roger Federer, Andy Murray, Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, and even David Ferrer. He's just an animal on court. He's a great athlete, and honestly I think he's the biggest fighter out there out of them all. I admire all of those guys and try to model some of the aspects of my game around that. Yeah, honestly it's a great top 5 we have. I think the best we have ever had. To have that many all‑time greats playing against each other, it's something that I don't think many other sports have. It's really nice. Q. You have Polish roots. Could you tell something about your parents? FILIP PELIWO: My parents were born in Poland; so were my brother and sister. My background is fully Polish. I was the only one born in Canada, so I guess black sheep of the family. (Laughter.) I'm proud of both my roots from Poland and my Canadian citizenship or nationality, rather. Q. From what part of Poland? FILIP PELIWO: My mom is from Krakow, and dad Zakopane, which is about an hour, hour and a half drive from there. Q. You speak polish? FILIP PELIWO: I'm fluent in Polish. I speak, read, and write. I tried to make sure I didn't waste that opportunity. Q. Have you been there? FILIP PELIWO: Yes, quite a few times. I was actually there after the French Open this year and last year. So I enjoy going back and having all the Polish food. My grandma and grandpa always fill me‑‑ make sure I eat as much as possible, more than I think is humanly possible. (Laughter.) It's always nice to go back and relax and spend time with the family. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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