TENNIS MASTERS CUP
Date: 2006-11-16

TENNIS MASTERS CUP

November 16, 2006

Andy Roddick
SHANGHAI, CHINA
The Moderator Questions, please.

Question Why did you look so frustrated last time you lost but so happy this time?
Answer What?

Question I want to know why are you look so frustrating on last lose but when you coming here, it seems you are a little bit happy this time.
Answer No. She's telling better jokes tonight.

Question What's the joke?
Answer It was a blonde joke (smiling).
I'm not happy. Let's get that straight. But, you know, I think two nights ago, whatever it was, was a little bit more emotionally taxing than tonight. You know, it's always a little bit easier to look forward to a vacation than it is trying to qualify.
What's done is done now. We'll look forward to next year.

Question It was a fantastic match with you and Federer. Why so different today for all your fans? You lose the match so soon. What happened?
Answer Well, you pretty much answered your own question there, didn't you? You know, let's give credit where credit's due. I probably hit the ball better two nights ago. But I didn't play badly tonight. I didn't hit the ball badly. I was hitting the ball through the court.
You know, I know you talked to David. I hope he told you that he played pretty well tonight 'cause, you know, I think that was definitely the case.

Question Two nights ago you were only a serve away from beating Roger. Now you're ending your season on two straight losses. Is that a downer after the great couple of months you've had recently?
Answer Not really. I mean, it's a downer, don't get me wrong. But I can still take a lot of positives away from the last four months of the year. I mean, let's put it in perspective. Going into the summer, I think I was, what, 18 in the champions race with people questioning if I would ever play top-level tennis again. I read some things that, you know, I wasn't ever going to be top five again and I righted that two months later.
So, you know, right now I can choose to look at the negatives going into next year; I can choose to look at the positives. Fortunately, the last half of the year there were a lot more positives than negatives. I feel like I'm only going to get more comfortable playing this new style. You know, I'll have a little bit of time to really work on it and trim is daily, so I'll choose to look at it that way.

Question Was there a point at all today when you thought that David wasn't going to play the match? Did that at all have any bearing?
Answer No. I didn't hear. From what I read from him two nights ago, he gave every inclination that he was going to play, so that didn't cross my mind one time.

Question Can you evaluate your opponent's return strategy tonight, David's return strategy?
Answer Was there a specific strategy?

Question Can you evaluate it?
Answer His strategy or the way he returned?

Question The way of his return.
Answer Yeah, I mean, I thought he returned really well and I thought I was being very aggressive with him. You know, he was definitely putting me under pressure if I didn't make my first serve.

Question Is it possible to reflect a little bit back over these last four months, the difference between the Andy Roddick who left Wimbledon and the Andy Roddick who is leaving Shanghai.
Answer Well, I mean, I think it's night and day. You know, there was literally a practice after Wimbledon where I sat down and I couldn't have hit the ball into an ocean from the beach much less, you know, a tennis court from the other side. I literally sat down and said, Okay, either you really get after it here or, you know, you just need to take a couple months off or something (laughter).
I'm glad I chose the first option. You know, if you would have asked me after Wimbledon if I would have, you know, put together a second half like I did, I probably would have lied to you and said I believed it, but maybe not have believed it, you know.
Like I said, I mean, there's a lot to look forward to next year. I played about as ordinary as I could for about nine months of the year and I'm still here 5 or 6 in the world. In a weird way, that's got to be a good thing.

Question Of course you are fighting to win Grand Slams, Davis Cup and so on. There's in Wimbledon a famous sentence saying the day you look to win or lose with the same face, do you think it's only a sentence or this is possible? I think you are also a winner. You know what I mean. You lose 17-15 to Tursunov, the other day with Roger.
Answer I think that that quote, I think it's more interpreted in the way that maybe you carry yourself after a loss, maybe giving credit where credit's due, you know, conducting it that way.
As much as you hear that you're both winners, that's not really the case (laughter). That's not really true most days. The only people who will tell you that is probably the guy that lost.

Question It's a pity that you can't go further in Shanghai because it's your first Shanghai TMC. You only got two breakpoints in the second set. You made a double-fault in a key point in the tiebreak. Have you ever had such an idea that you can beat David in this match?
Answer That I can? Yeah, absolutely.

Question Cannot, sorry. Have you ever think about you cannot beat him? Does that kind of idea cross your mind once tonight?
Answer Yeah, after I missed the last forehand return in the net.

Question Do you have a definite agreement with Jimmy for 2007? How will that play out? He'll be with you sometimes or...
Answer Yeah, I mean, we're kind of just going to continue the way we've been. You know, I don't think you're going to see him on the road five weeks in a row. But at the same time he's definitely going to be involved next year.

Question You had a very good match against Ljubicic, and a very close match versus Roger Federer, but today you didn't play very well. Can we say you are putting too much pressure on yourself? I saw you the day when you were to have the match against Federer. You make fun of the Bryan brothers because they just had a victory. You bump into the wall to make fun of them. It seems to me that you are in high spirits that day. Today is it because you're putting too much pressure on yourself?
Answer Just today?

Question As the match goes on, you're just putting more and more pressure. If you lose this game, you're going to be disqualified. That's the reason for your loss?
Answer No.

Question Then what's it?
Answer He played better than I did today. You guys are acting like this is a weird concept. Going into a match, you have a winner and a loser. Someone's going to play better. He played better than I did today. It's unfortunate. I'm mad that I didn't maybe play better on the big points. The way I look at it, I played very well in two out of three matches here. I played okay today. I hit the ball decent.
You know, let's simplify it a little bit. I don't think it's rocket science.

Question He's serving for the match and you break him. You hold and go into the tiebreak. You take this 3-1 lead. At that point were you feeling like you still had a shot?
Answer Yeah. I thought I had a shot when he was serving it out. I mean, he had a little bit of trouble closing it out the other day against Ivan, too. I'm sure that was playing in the back of his mind a little bit. If I would have just played a little bit more solid in the breaker, I feel like we might still be out there right now.

Question We see you and the Bryan brothers lost today. You always have two top 10 singles players and world No. 1 doubles players. Why you still can't win Davis Cup over 10 years?
Answer I don't know. We probably should. Whatever. I'm done with you. I wish everything was that easy. If it was easy, everybody would do it.