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COUPE ROGERSAugust 7, 2013Jesse LevineMONTREAL, QUEBEC R. NADAL/J. Levine THE MODERATOR: Questions, please. Q. How was it? JESSE LEVINE: I mean, it was tough. Especially when you're serving pretty poorly, you can't really get any freebies on your serve, it's never easy against a guy like that. I was having a little bit of elbow issues starting out. No excuses. The guy played extremely well. It was pretty windy out there as well on one side. His spin plus the wind was pretty brutal. But I felt like I had a good start. The first four games, a couple deuce games, pretty competitive. It was lasting quite a while. Physically I felt okay except for my elbow. But credit to him, he was hitting the ball well, moving me around well. He's a tough player. Q. Conditions make it different from last time or something else as well? JESSE LEVINE: Conditions make it tough. It was tough for him, as well. A couple balls were flying on him, too. When he had the wind behind him, it was tough for me. Q. What is the Rafa experience like? JESSE LEVINE: That was my second time playing him. The first time is more kind of shocking. I felt like I had a good start. Obviously against someone like that, once you get going, you kind of get in the swing of things. He really doesn't let you go. Once he gets you under wrap, you're in trouble. It's tough. Q. Nine double‑faults to one. Disappointing for you? JESSE LEVINE: Not disappointing. It's disappointing that my elbow is hurting me. I couldn't really accelerate like I wanted to. At times when I wanted to go for a serve, I couldn't do it. It's more painful on a second serve, to be honest, because that's when you're really trying to accelerate more and get more spin. That's when it would hurt more. Q. At what point can you look back and say that you didn't have such a bad week? JESSE LEVINE: Yeah, obviously to get a first‑round win over Malisse was a great result for me. I'll keep moving forward, get my elbow healthy, get ready for the US Open. Obviously I'm happy with the first‑round win. I was definitely the underdog against Rafa. But wish him the best of luck. It's good to see him back on tour. Yeah, I mean, I'm happy. Hopefully there will be many more. Q. General question about Canadian tennis. Tying a record of having five Canadians in the second round. Part of history. JESSE LEVINE: How I feel? Q. Being part of a cool trivia question. JESSE LEVINE: I think it's pretty cool. Five guys in the second round is pretty special. Almost six. I think Frank is on the court right now, in a battle with Janowicz. I can see the score out there. He's up a break. That's pretty cool. Hopefully there can be threeoutoffive in the third round. It would be awesome. Set some more records. The more records we set, the better it looks. Let's see what happens. Q. You mentioned the US Open. How different will that be this year, not being an American but being a Canadian? JESSE LEVINE: Could be pretty different (laughter). Yeah, let's just say I won't have the support like I did here this week. It's funny 'cause when I made the switch back, once people realized that I was actually born in Ottawa, lived there till I was 14, they're like, Oh, okay. They didn't realize that, thought I lived in the States my whole life. Once they realize that, they're kind of like, Okay, now we can't really say anything. But I'll have my helmet on getting ready for the bottles to be thrown at me. I don't think they'll be coming, but maybe some voices will be shouting at me. I'll have to block it out. Q. What kind of helmet? JESSE LEVINE: Ottawa Rough Riders helmet. Q. How did you like your experience here as a Canadian? JESSE LEVINE: It was special. To have the home crowd support, especially my night match against Malisse on Banque Nationale, it was an amazing experience. Against Rafa, when it was a little bit closer, I could feel they were kind of pulling for me. They make the introductions. I was playing as a Canadian. Still it was pretty loud for him. I think he still took the cake on that one. I guess it's expected against a guy like that. He's such a fan favorite. He's so good for the sport. When I played him in 2008, I didn't have nearly that much support. It felt nice out there. To have family and friends here watching, it was pretty special. Q. What exactly happened with the elbow? Has it been an issue? JESSE LEVINE: I did it at Queen's this year in England. That's why I couldn't play Eastbourne before Wimbledon. I was doing treatment. That's why I didn't play Eastbourne before Wimbledon. At Wimbledon it was still bugging me. Kind of got worse, got worse. I mean, it just hasn't been able to heal completely yet. That's why I'm really struggling on my serve lately. Hopefully I can get healthy and get it ready by US Open. As far as anything else, I don't feel it on anything else, just my serve. Like he said, that's a lot of double‑faults. I don't usually do that.  Not trying to make excuses. I don't know how much different the score would have been, but maybe the double‑fault number would have been better. Q. Right elbow? JESSE LEVINE: Left. If it was my right, we wouldn't have a problem. Q. Do you know what the problem is? JESSE LEVINE: They say I have golfer's elbow. I play a lot of golf, but I don't feel it when I play golf. The tennis elbow is on the outside, the golfer's elbow is on the inside. I just got out of the doctors. Did an ultrasound.  They didn't see any serious tears or anything like that. Just rehab to get it stronger and strengthened. Q. For years they're saying the players at the top are going to get bigger and bigger. We've seen some bigger guys come in. The dominant guys are roughly still around 6'1", 6'2". Do you foresee a time when the game is dominated by guys 6'5", 6'6"? JESSE LEVINE: I sure hope not (smiling). I don't know. It's different. When you're 6'6", 6'10", Karlovic, Isner. If I take one of these chairs and serve, that's what it feels like. It's a different feeling. I wish I knew what that feels like. I don't. I think it can be physically tougher on their bodies. At the same time they definitely have an advantage on their service games. They can take more chances on their return games because they have that advantage when serving. You are seeing a lot more of the taller breed of players. You still see your fair share of 6'1" players out there. I mean, it's hard to say what's going to happen, with technology, with racquets, that could also help out the smaller guys. At the same time, it would only be helping the bigger guys as well. There's different ways of looking at it. I'm not sure how it's going to go. We'll have to wait and see. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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