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BNP PARIBAS MASTERSNovember 3, 2012Michael LlordaPARIS, FRANCE D. FERRER/M. Llodra THE MODERATOR: Questions in French, please. Q. Have you ever lost a set playing so well? MICHAEL LLODRA: Maybe. I don't remember just now, but it was great tennis during the whole first set. It's extremely frustrating, because I believe if I was serving first it would have been a different match. I don't remember how many break points I had, maybe ten, in all games I think except one. If I had won that first set it would have been different. I would have been ahead; he would have been more tense. But great players, they are able to hang in there. He served well. On one point I made a return and he sent it back in my feet. It's a bit tough to accept. Q. In the beginning of the second set you were a bit tired? MICHAEL LLODRA: Well, it was a bit tougher for me physically than the other days. And I don't know if you realized, but I played serve and volley and I went up to the net almost every point. It's a lot of running fast and everything. It's tiring. I need to go up to the net as fast as I can otherwise the volley is more difficult. And I played one extra match compared with him; I'm not used to playing so many matches like this anymore. This morning my back was a bit stiff. It didn't show in the first set; in the second set I had a bad beginning of the set. But I couldn't stop there. I had to do something well in front of the Bercy crowd. Q. Don't you believe Ferrer plays very well indoors? MICHAEL LLODRA: Yes. He has this image of a clay court player, but I remember him in Shanghai in 2007. I think he played extremely well he has been very consistent. For the past six, seven years he has been at the top. Maybe he's underestimated for his game indoors. But he has four players in front of him in the rankings that are absolutely monstrous, so for him it's tough. If you want to beat him, you need to play an extremely good match. He never makes mistakes. If he does, it's very rare. Q. Do you believe he's more solid and confident than before? MICHAEL LLODRA: Yes. Well, personally I have a very special game. He plays very good passings, but there were spectacular points in the first set. They were only winners. No unforced errors neither from him or me. I was playing well on his serve, too. Even to my myself I was thinking, What do I have to do to win a point against him? He was never making any mistakes. He is extremely solid. Q. So ten break points in the first set. Do you believe you played them well? Do you have any regrets on one or two shots? MICHAEL LLODRA: No, I can't think of one where I could say I missed. He played first serve aces. I made an extremely good return, for example, on one of his serves two centimeters behind the baseline, and he was able to get it back. I mean, it was extremely tough. There was a rally on another break point, and he went up to the net and he passed me. I never missed a volley on any of them. I never made any unforced errors on any break points, so I have no regrets. Except that I was a bit unlucky. He didn't make mistakes then. But I played well. Q. About your back, was it at the end of the first set? MICHAEL LLODRA: No. I felt stiff this morning already. I was feeling it a lot when I was serving. I think my speed of serve was five or ten kilometers slower than the other days. Also, he passes extremely well, so you need to be really efficient at the net. My type of game is more difficult than playing from the baseline. I have to go up to the net on every point, and this of course makes me feel tired at the end of the week. Q. You were explaining what you were going to do in 2013, now that the week has passed, don't you think you might change your schedule? Don't you have more ambition for next year? MICHAEL LLODRA: In the beginning of the week I was top 120. Everyone was saying Mika is at the end of his career. He can play doubles but maybe not singles. In my mind it was never like that. I know I was a singles player. Of course I had better results in doubles, but I knew before anything else I was a singles player. For next year I had decided to play singles as well as doubles with a wise schedule. So now what has changed is that I won't have to play the quallies, and that will be important in the beginning of next year. I will be able to reorganize my schedule more easily. But if there are weeks where I don't want to play, I won't play. I want to have my family life and play the tournaments I like. At the end of 2013 I will think about what I'm going to do. It's not my level of tennis that bothers me. What bothers me is being away from my family. We'll see. Maybe I'll play 10, 12 months in 2014 or 2015. We'll see. But in the end of 2013 I will think about all that. Q. You were talking about the four crazy top players, but there is Jerzy to take into account. The final is tomorrow. What do you think of him? MICHAEL LLODRA: The first time I saw him was in Mons, a challenger. He hits extremely hard. His first serve is impressive. His second serve is good, too. From the baseline, well, he's not only a good server, he's very good from the baseline. He has a very good one‑handed backhand. He's a complete player. On a surface like this one where the ball doesn't bounce high and it hurts when you hit hard, well, he's difficult to play. So he made a very strong impression on me. Now we'll see how he's going to play next year. He's playing an extremely good tournament. Q. Do you think he will just collapse after this week or can he go further? MICHAEL LLODRA: Well, first, he's capable of winning this tournament. But a final is something different. He never played a final before, but he seems to be quite calm and serene. We'll see what happens in the final. Anything can happen. But I would give an advantage to Ferrer for this final. THE MODERATOR: Questions in English. Q. You are one of the few players who is playing at the top tier in singles in doubles. Until recently you were top 50 singles, top 5 doubles. Can you talk about the challenge of doing both? MICHAEL LLODRA: It's always tough to play singles and doubles at the same tournaments. Usually the best guy in the singles, the single guy, doesn't play the doubles because it's too much effort to win the tournament in singles. But sometimes it's good to play the doubles, especially when we go on different, you know, courts. When we arrive in Indian Wells it's important to play some matches to see how is the court and everything. So, I mean, if you want to win the slams you cannot play the doubles for sure. For me it's always a pleasure to play doubles. I enjoy a lot to be in the court with one friend. But for sure if I was top 10 in the world could be different, sure. Q. This year there has obviously been a lot of talk about prize money. Doubles doesn't get included in this conversation a lot. People don't tend to talk about how much money doubles makes in prizes. Do you think there should be more of a voice for doubles players in ATP? MICHAEL LLODRA: For the doubles, you know, I don't like the way all the people, the journalists, talk about the doubles. I mean, for me, even if I'm playing doubles, singles, doubles is very spectacular. When you talk with the crowd, with the fans, they love to see doubles. For sure they love to watch doubles with the superstar, the singles superstar. As we see, sometimes the superstar lose against the doubles specialists. They love to watch. Especially in Davis Cup it's very important, the doubles point. I mean, we have to find the good combination between the single guys, double guys. For sure couple years ago it was very important. You know, like McEnroe, they love to play doubles. But now it's more professional. It's tough to be top 10 in the world in singles. Used to be more easier to play singles and doubles. It was faster. So for sure it was easier too play singles and doubles the same week. Now you have to fight two, three hours sometimes, and if you have to come back on the court, you know, two hours after to play doubles, it's very difficult. So it's tough to say. I think the doubles, they won ‑ or we won ‑ a lot money with the doubles. It can be more money, but it's still good. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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