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SHANGHAI ROLEX MASTERSOctober 9, 2012Lleyton HewittSHANGHAI, CHINA R. STEPANEK/L. Hewitt THE MODERATOR: Questions, please. Q. What did you take out of that? Serve wasn't at its best tonight. LLEYTON HEWITT: Uhm, yeah, first serve sort of came and went a little bit. But my second serve actually held up really well through the whole match. That's what I sort of struggled with a little bit through the US Open and Davis Cup, was my second serve. So in terms of that, I was happy with that. First serve, yeah, I served in patches. He played a great match, though. That court suits him extremely well. Yeah, he executed everything he needed to do. Q. Physically everything was good? LLEYTON HEWITT: Yeah, pretty good. Physically I felt fine. Obviously, the toughest thing with the foot has been just keep changing surfaces. I always find the first week on a different surface, the last three months, has been the toughest thing. I had some good practices the last couple of days. But, yeah, always that first week back on hard courts is not easy. Q. Now that you've had a little time to reflect on Davis Cup, it was disappointing, but do you feel your body is up to three matches in a row for the future? Was that something you feel needs to sort of be tactically tweaked as to how to best use you in circumstances like that? LLEYTON HEWITT: Yeah, possibly. Yeah, I don't know. It's a tough one 'cause obviously at the time it's really the only options we had. So, yeah, I don't know exactly what the best way of doing it is. But by the last day this time, especially on clay, on a slow clay court, when I haven't played as many matches as I would have liked, that sort of took a toll over the three days. Q. Bernie had a pretty lame last second set today. He was asked if he gave 100%. He said about 85%. How does it make you feel, for someone that gives 200% when you go out there, what kind of advice can you give him? LLEYTON HEWITT: Today I don't know because I didn't see any of the match obviously. I only saw the score. Who knows. Yeah, I've practiced with him twice in the last three days. In practice he's been trying. Yeah, I can't really comment on today's match because I haven't seen it. Obviously some guys I guess go in and out of matches a little bit more than me probably. I feel like whatever I do, I always give 100% anyway. Bernie's a totally different character and totally different player to how I am. But, you know, he's probably going through a little bit of a rough patch I guess the last, you know, four or five months. Q. Some fans just cry when they saw you wave your hands on the court because they still remember a lot about you, especially when you won the Masters Cup in Shanghai. Do you still remember the first championship news conference in Shanghai when you won the Masters Cup? Do you still remember that? LLEYTON HEWITT: It's a long time ago, so I don't know if I remember. I remember obviously winning it. It was a very special memory for me, obviously. I held on to the No.1 ranking again at that tournament and obviously finished it off by winning the tournament against quality players. For me to come back to Shanghai is fantastic every time. This is only the second time I've played it as a Masters Series event. It's one of my favorite tournaments of the year. The organization is first class. It's fantastic for the players. I hope to be back here again. As I said, it's a great tournament. The fans are good. Out at the practice court, they try and walk on the practice court (smiling). But they're very excitable fans. Q. What are your plans now? LLEYTON HEWITT: I play Stockholm and Valencia. Q. The off‑season, any particular priorities this time? LLEYTON HEWITT: Not really. I'm playing an XO in Tokyo. Apart from that it will be training as usual for the Australian summer. Q. And Brisbane this time? LLEYTON HEWITT: Yeah, playing Brisbane. Yeah, something different. I look forward to it. Should be a good event. I played in that arena for Davis Cup, obviously. It will be good. Q. Since we're talking about history, Andy Roddick retired this year, Marat Safin retired a couple years ago. Roger jokingly said before he might play until he was 35 or something. What about you? Do you have a plan? LLEYTON HEWITT: I don't have a time, a number on it, no. Obviously a lot is dependent on my body and how I'm feeling. Right at the moment, though, I'm still motivated. I'm still training as hard as ever, as hard as anyone out there I think. The hardest thing is just not playing, coming off a Davis Cup clay court, not playing for a few weeks, then trying to step it up against quality players. I'm really looking forward to November, December, where I can train hard for the first time in a long time and get ready for the Australian summer, take it from there. But, as I said, I'm still enjoying it at the moment. We'll see what happens. Q. You are in this sport for so many years. We are in the world of the big four. Do you have any comment on this competition, the four top players competing against each other and won everything? Little room for the rest of the other players. What do you think about that? LLEYTON HEWITT: Oh, it's fantastic for those four guys, what they've been able to do, how consistent they've been. It's great for Murray obviously to cross the line now because he came so close so many times against those three other guys. It's great for men's tennis. A lot of generations, there's only been two guys at different times that have sort of had a rivalry. In terms of that I think that's good. There's four guys. The only other guy that won a slam against those four is Del Potro. There's a couple others pushing for it, Ferrer, Berdych, Tsonga, these kind of guys. But I think men's tennis is pretty healthy at the moment. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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