ATP MASTER SERIES MADRID
Date: 2006-10-19

ATP MASTER SERIES MADRID

October 19, 2006

Andy Roddick
MADRID, SPAIN
Question How are you? How is the injury?
Answer It's the same ankle I had earlier this year during the clay court season. I kind of just tweaked it again. I maybe should know more, but I can't really cut too well on the court right now and push off too well. That's a problem.

Question At what stage of the match did it get worse?
Answer Well, right when it happened, it started feeling pretty bad. But I think that was early in the second -- maybe 2-2, 3-2 him in the second set or something.

Question It was difficult to see. We were trying to watch it on the screen. Were you talking to a supervisor about what would happen if you stopped?
Answer They have all these fun rules where -- because obviously next week's in doubt. I was just trying to cover my bases.
A lot of times you pull out and it's after a certain date, and you get fined thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars. Obviously I wanted to finish because Thomas I thought deserved the win regardless of what happened with my ankle. And you don't want to ever default at 4-1 or 5-2, but you also don't want to be a victim of ridiculous rules either.

Question What was the outcome? What did he say? What was the outcome of the ridiculous rule?
Answer I finished, right?

Question Everything is cool with the ATP?
Answer I have no issue. I was just clarifying a rule that we had some confusion over at an earlier date and just wanted to make sure I didn't put myself in the same situation.

Question So as of now you just need to go away and see how it is and decide whether you might be okay for Paris. But I suppose most importantly get it right for Shanghai?
Answer Yeah. That's the priority. I'm in pretty good shape right now. I think I'm pretty close to confirmed. But that's the priority right now is to get it healthy.
If you qualify for Shanghai, I'm not totally sure what the upside is to trying to play on a bum ankle. So we'll see. We're just going to have to play it day to day here. I'm not going to make any decisions right now or this afternoon. We'll probably see how it pulls up tomorrow and the day after that.

Question It's kind of the perennial question, Andy. But after the U.S. Open, how hard is it even when you've got a big event, a very, very big event to play for to get yourself motivated to play in a manner that you want to play when you've had such demands this year from the U.S. Open.
Answer It's tough. It's no secret that as tennis players I think the decisions that are made as far as how much to play -- after the U.S. Open, a lot of that is decided by people who aren't really players benefiting financially. And that's why it's such a full calendar after the U.S. Open.
It's a little bit unfortunate. I think a lot of the players have been vocal about maybe being a little bit more selective with the amount of weeks that there are after the U.S. Open. As evidenced by this tournament. Some of the top players who have put themselves in positions late in tournaments week in and week out have been paying the price this week either mentally or physically. But unfortunately the way that it's set up, each person has their piece of the pie. And there's not one decision maker.
Then you're running into a lot of other different issues if someone tries to make decisions. Not one person wants to give up their little piece of the pie for the betterment of the game or the players. Which is unfortunate.

Question It was the first time you played Berdych. Was your opinion on him.
Answer He's good. I thought he served real well. His percentages had to be up in like the mid 70's or something. That's just a ballpark guess, but I don't think I'd be too far off.
I don't know -- I know he normally serves very hard and very big, but I'm not sure if he serves that consistently. I wasn't really getting looks.
With that being said, I still felt like I played myself out of that first set a little bit. He's a good player. Now with him I think it's just a matter of consistency. The difference between being 12 and 15 in the world and Top-5 in the world is doing it every week. He's certainly capable, but putting that capability to work on a weekly basis is a different story than potentially being capable.

Question I had the feeling during your two last matches that you were guessing a little more before on the return of serve. Am I right?
Answer Today?

Question Today and against Grosjean also two days ago.
Answer Not really. Today maybe a little bit more. You'll notice there's not a -- with the altitude here, there's not a whole lot of points being won against other people's first serves.
Especially when he was serving the way he was and the angle that he was, he was hitting all his spots today. I was definitely leaning towards one side or another. I don't know. I don't know if I was guessing. But the other day, definitely not.

Question The other day you said that you didn't know if jimmy Connors would follow you. You said that you did not know if Jimmy Connors would be with you through the end of the year with the tournaments.
Answer Yeah.

Question Do you know if he will follow you now?
Answer I don't know how much, with my injury, if I'm going to be here for the European tournaments. I guess that would be a question that I would have to answer before I would answer the other one. I guess the best I can do right now is I don't know.

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