TENNIS WIMBLEDON 2014 – 28th of June. A. Cornet d. S. Williams 1-6, 6-3, 6-4. An interview with Serena Williams
Q. You were so much in control at the end of that first set. What happened?
SERENA WILLIAMS: I don’t know. I tried and it just didn’t work out.
Q. You seemed frustrated by all the dropshots. Was that a tactic she used in Dubai also?
SERENA WILLIAMS: I guess so. I wasn’t really frustrated by all the dropshots. I just think – no, I wasn’t really frustrated by them.
Q. Were you frustrated at all by being scheduled on Court 1 and not Centre Court?
SERENA WILLIAMS: No, not at all.
Q. Didn’t seem like you were swinging very freely through the second and third sets. Just weren’t feeling the ball well? What was going on there?
SERENA WILLIAMS: Really? I thought I was swinging freely. Maybe I wasn’t.
I’ll have to go back and look and see. But, yeah, so initially I thought I was swinging and hitting pretty hard.
Q. What were the things that she was doing especially well and what was giving you the most trouble in this match?
SERENA WILLIAMS: Well, she kept her unforced errors really low. I don’t know. I think I made a few errors too many. You know, she was going for her shots.
Yeah, she played really well today.
Q. We’re used to seeing you dominate so powerfully in slams. Do you sense this season it’s a case of other women closing the gap or more that you’re not playing to your potential?
SERENA WILLIAMS: Well, I think everyone in general plays the match of their lives against me. So I’m pretty sure that the next match, it won’t be the same.
So I just have to always, every time I step on the court, be a hundred times better. If I’m not, then I’m in trouble.
Q. Do you see any common thread between what happened at the Australian Open, what happened in Paris, and what happened here?
SERENA WILLIAMS: No. Australia, I just couldn’t play. And Paris I played really bad. Here I actually thought I played better. I came into the tournament in better form.
You know, I thought I was doing pretty decent. I think I’m going to have to watch this film and see what I can do better and what went wrong.
Q. Your serve has bailed you out of a lot of situations. Is that a stroke that hasn’t been up to par in general this year and at this tournament?
SERENA WILLIAMS: Yeah, I thought my first two matches I served well. Today, I don’t know the percentages of my serve, but I do know I didn’t hit as many aces. I think my first serve was down a little bit.
Yeah, so definitely. I worked really hard on my serve, so I don’t know why it didn’t happen today.
Q. You’ve been the dominant player of our era. Your confidence must be shaken a little bit. Can you talk about your confidence, maybe what you want to do to get things going.
SERENA WILLIAMS: Well, I don’t know. Like I said, I worked really, really hard coming into this event. I’m going to have to keep working hard.
You know, just ’cause you lose a match doesn’t mean you stop. You just got to kind of keep going.
Like I said, maybe it wasn’t for today. Maybe it’s for tomorrow. So I’ll just keep fighting. That’s all I can do really.
Q. Frustrations like today, is that what drives you to keep coming back? When you come back next year, will you keep this defeat in mind to give you that motivation to try to succeed?
SERENA WILLIAMS: Uhm, I don’t know. I don’t know if I will keep it in mind. I think this defeat is important to study. Right now I don’t really know what I did wrong. Usually I do. Usually I know I did this, this, and that.
I mean, I have a few ideas, but this will be a really good one for me to kind of like assess and figure out what I can do to do better next time.
Q. How unusual is it to be in that situation where you come off the court and you aren’t sure why exactly you lost? Has that happened to you before?
SERENA WILLIAMS: Yeah, it’s happened to me a few times. But it’s fun. It kind of gives you a mission to work on, gives you goals to work towards to kind of see what you can do to do better.
Q. You had spoken a couple times about how the women step up and play the match of their lives against you. Can you talk about that, why that is.
SERENA WILLIAMS: I don’t know. I think it’s always kind of been like that, so I always have to be ready. If I’m not, then I’m not. But I have to be ready for that. Since I do know that, it’s no excuse.
If they want to play well, that’s great. It gives me great competition. I think it makes for a wonderful match.
I have to be ready. I have to be ready to play anyone at any given time.
Q. Among all the factors that are still driving you to compete and push yourself, where does that 18th major rank? Is that a significant motivating factor for you?
SERENA WILLIAMS: I think it’s definitely pretty significant. It’s something I’m obviously going to keep going for. But it’s definitely something in my mind, pretty important.
Q. Being that close to equaling Martina and Chris, is that at all in your mind as a pressure point for you, something that’s preoccupying you at these slams?
SERENA WILLIAMS: No, I don’t think so, because I haven’t gotten too far to kind of feel that pressure, so…
Yeah, I don’t think it’s been that much on my mind.
Q. Before the tournament you said that you weren’t over the French Open loss. Did you continue to feel that?
SERENA WILLIAMS: No, not at all. I actually feel like that loss helped me work on some things and see things that I needed to see. I think that loss really, really helped me and motivated me to go home and put a lot of effort on the court and work out really hard.
