Interviews
Q. You came back very well. You seemed to have gotten it within your grasp in the tiebreak. Then suddenly it twirled around like that.
GORAN IVANISEVIC: It's probably not turning all these four weeks against me. I probably use my luck in London, you know. Now it's payback time. It's back in all tournaments. Same thing in Stuttgart, two matchpoints. Last week I had a lot of break points. Today, you know, 6-4, I couldn't hit a better second serve.
Then on the second matchpoint I hit two unbelievable forehands, mis-hit, smash on the line.
But that's it. You can't do anything. I tried my best. You have to have luck sometimes. Probably I used all mine and that's it now.
Q. What are you going to do now, between now and Sydney?
GORAN IVANISEVIC: I don't know. I didn't think what I gonna do. I go home probably for a couple days and cool down a little bit. Then I fly there.
Q. This is probably our last chance to talk to you before you go to Sydney. What are your thoughts on the Masters Cup? Even though you had a loss here, are you still excited about it?
GORAN IVANISEVIC: I think it's a great achievement. Eight, nine months ago I play challenger in Germany. And I was like thinking, you know, "Poor guys to have to go to Sydney, play Masters at end of the year." Now I am the one that have to go, and come back, and after one month go again.
But it's a great thing. It's a lot of Croatian people live there. I hope I gonna have great support there. I hope it's gonna be perfect. Hopefully I have little better luck. I play good tennis, but it seems everything turning against me. But hopefully there, you know...
Q. Do you like the round robin format then?
GORAN IVANISEVIC: Yeah, this is great. You can't afford to play bad. You can play there best tennis and lose there. I try to play good, but you have to have a lot of luck there. This is seven best players in the world at the moment, and if you don't play well, you know, you gonna go home very soon.
Q. Some players have been saying the surface and the conditions are quite slow here. How much do you think it's an advantage to --?
GORAN IVANISEVIC: It's not so slow. Comparing to Stuttgart, St. Petersburg, Vienna, it's very fast. This is the fastest indoor tournament I play so far.
It's slow, but it's not that slow, you know. If you serve well, it's very tough to return here.
Q. You seemed to be very serious practicing the other day, and today as well. Are you surprised with how concentrated you are, how determined you are at this point in the year?
GORAN IVANISEVIC: I mean, I'm trying my best, you know. I have a tough time, you know. It's end of the year, you know. You play four, five tournaments indoor, you get crazy. All day you stay inside and it's very tough.
But you need only one thing to snap, and then everything is finished. So I try to give my best not to snap, not to do anything stupid, you know, and try to concentrate for one more week and for Masters because this is really thing I want to do well. It's fun, you know.
Q. Do you feel there's much chance you'll be back here next year? If you're not having the operation, do you think the shoulder will last?
GORAN IVANISEVIC: I'm not going to have. I try to survive with the painkillers. It's going to take me too much time to come back. I'm not prepared at this age to come back.
I come back, who knows, it's a long way to next year. But definitely I gonna go and defend my title in London. Then we see after that.
Q. Do you think it would have been a different match today if you were not certain to be qualified for the Masters Cup? Don't you think that maybe you were a little bit laid back because you were sure to qualify for the Masters Cup?
GORAN IVANISEVIC: No, has nothing to do with that. I was qualified a long time ago, you know.
But I mean, it was always chance that I drop out of Top 20. Was very slim chance.
But, no, I wanted to. I had good chance if I do well here to improve on the other ranking. We have two rankings. Two rankings, I don't know which one now, is very confuse. Too many ranking systems (laughter).
So between me and the No. 12 was not big difference in the points so there was a chance for me. So I wanted to win this match and I wanted to play Marat again. But will be nice. Doesn't matter if I playing quarters, semis or quallies, I step on the court and I want to win. I don't want to lose match like this, you know, have two matchpoints up.
Right, the disclaimer. The interviews do not belong to me and are not being used for any form of profit on my behalf. Just to feed our craving for Goran.