WIMBLEDON
Date: 2006-06-29

WIMBLEDON

June 29, 2006

Andy Roddick
WIMBLEDON, ENGLAND
The Moderator Ladies and gentlemen, Andy Roddick, of course.

Question I'm sure you're very relieved to get it over and done with tonight when your next opponents have to come back tomorrow?
Answer Yeah, absolutely, if you would have asked when I went on who was gonna finish, who wasn't, I probably wouldn't have picked this scenario for you.
I don't know if I was too thrilled when they decided to go on at a little after 7:30. I'm glad they put me on now.

Question Looking ahead to your opponents, obviously Andy Murray could be one. Could you talk about him, how you think it will go.
Answer Against Murray?

Question Yeah.
Answer Yeah, no, he's a good player. He's got a great feel for the game. He hits a lot of dropshots. He competes pretty well. He does everything pretty well. So he makes you beat him, which is tough.

Question What about having the home crowd behind him? Is it a help or hindrance?
Answer Well, you're gonna have to ask him that one.

Question From your point of view, back in the U.S., how do you find it?
Answer It's fine. It can be both. There's more pressure, but then again, you know, support creates adrenaline, whether it's good or bad. How you use it is an entirely different story. I don't know if there's one set reaction from a person that rings true all the time.

Question Was there anything at all useful about being a little frustrated or starting so late? I mean, did it lend an urgency or sort of venom or vigor to your focus?
Answer I don't know. I don't know. That was -- that felt right out there on the court tonight. You know, it was just aggressive, and I did what I wanted to do. I wasn't overthinking. I was just reacting and playing. You know, that felt normal, which is welcome at this point.
Are you guys passing notes? Do you want me to read that in front of the classroom?

Question He said, What's the L? I wrote down 'Longhorns'. That's the T. What's the L?
Answer (Pointing to the Lacoste logo on his cap.)
Question I'm feeling very stupid.
Answer Well, you should be.

Question Must feel good to routine a guy like that?
Answer It feels good to routine anybody right now. You know, like I said, you know, he actually started off pretty well early on. I just -- it just felt clean out there tonight. You know, I felt I wasn't overthinking things. I was just going out and my whole -- all I wanted to do is just be aggressive on every ball, border on the side of aggression. And that helped. As opposed to yesterday where I was, you know, if there was one, I was probably backing off a little bit.
You know, my brother, John and I, we talked before. He said, If you're gonna overdo something, overdo aggressiveness as opposed to passiveness.

Question What are your recollections of Murray from San Jose?
Answer No, he's good. I just feel like he's very good at going from defense to offense. I felt like I got passed a lot. If I remember the match correctly, I didn't serve well and I was spraying my forehands a little bit, which against him, he's a pretty consistent player. He's not gonna give anything to you. Makes for a long day at the office.

Question He also returned very well, and returned well in that match. How big is it gonna be for you to go out there and more or less play like you did today, keep the points short, make sure --
Answer Just be aggressive. I mean, I think, you know, I think I served about 42 or 43% that match. So, you know, he returned well, but he was getting a lot of looks, I think. So it will be important for me to up that and serve the way I have the last -- at Queen's I served pretty well, and through my first two matches here I've served pretty well. If I keep that up, I think hopefully it will affect his return -- his returning in the negative a little bit.

Question Difference in playing him in a best-of-five rather than a best-of-three...
Answer You know, I don't -- right now I'm focused more on game plan as opposed to comparing two-out-of-three sets to three-out-of-five sets, you know.

Question There are fitness issues with him.
Answer Well, I hope that's the case. But if I'm correct, I think he got through one at the Open last year and, you know, that's something I'm not worried about. That's his issue, it's not mine. That's out of my hands.

Question Andy is still very young, developing a lot of things.
Answer He still has to win this match, right?

Question Pardon me?
Answer He still has to win, right?

Question They called it at 2-1.
Answer You guys are talking like he's through.

Question He has to play tomorrow.
Answer Okay.

Question My question is, you might not want to answer, but how do you think he'd fit in terms of having Brad as a coach? How do you think that chemistry --
Answer Brad's a great coach, there's no doubt about it, you know. But if, you know, California and Texas are far apart, California and Ireland are a lot further apart.

Question Scotland.
Answer Scotland sorry. Oh, God, I just shot myself in the foot. It's gonna be everywhere. Sorry. Excuse me. No, Scotland. I knew that.

Question Not too many Raider fans?
Answer I should know that just from the whole football jersey phenomenon that was going on over here earlier, about three weeks ago, huh?
In concept, I think Brad would help a lot of people, you know, especially someone young and impressionable. But logistically, unless he's willing to move, you know, and I know Brad's not, I mean, he has a family at home, you know, so I think it's a nice thought, but logistically, it's probably -- they would have to make it work. So I think that's the biggest challenge.

Question There's a tantalizing match we were looking at when the draw came out, Agassi-Nadal. How do you X and O that match?
Answer I think grass would probably be Andre's best surface to play him on these days. You know, unlike today, Nadal is probably going to have a little bit more time to hit returns, so we might see him resort to his old ground a little bit further behind the baseline against Andre.
You're probably gonna see Andre trying to dictate points and Nadal trying to turn defense into offense. You know, but I'm as excited as anybody. I think that's gonna be a great one. I think they might put it on Centre.

Question Was that as well as you've played all year today, or is it hard to tell because your opponent --
Answer No, it's not hard to tell; there haven't been many.
Yeah, I mean, it's up there. It's up there. I mean, if you put kind of weight of the moment and all that on it, maybe like Davis Cup match against Gonzalez, coming back. It wasn't my greatest stuff, but considering the moment and the way everything was going on around it and stuff, I thought that was a good effort.
But start to finish, Xs and Os, I hit it pretty well today. It felt really good.

Question Do you have a preference who you play next?
Answer Not really. I lost to them both the last time I played them, so, uhm, you know, I'm looking forward to getting out there either way. I just want to play good tennis against if it is Andy Murray - from Scotland - that I play next (smiling).

Question One more quick one on the...
Answer That was a pump fake on the finishing of the interview, huh? That was like the Oscars. That was like a five-second delay.

Question Like you pump faking the umpire yesterday?
Answer Yeah, yeah.

Question But on the Andre-Nadal match, there's sort of a thought out there that even if Andre plays well, Nadal will run everything down anyway and just exhaust him. Do you think Andre is still capable of dictating enough to hit through him?
Answer He's definitely capable of it. I haven't really seen Andre exhausted too many times, to be honest, in recent memory. He went through the Open last year five-setter after five-setter. I don't think anybody thought -- if you would have said he was gonna do that going in, you probably would have said no.
Like I said, if there is a surface where he is gonna be able to dictate play, it's going to be on something like this where not only is it quicker, but I don't think Rafa's footing is going to be as good as it is anywhere else.
If you're asking me if Andre has a shot in this, I definitely think he does. You know, I definitely think he does.

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