TENNIS DAVIS CUP – Federer and Wawrinka over the moon after winning first Davis Cup for their country. Disappointed French team, but no regrets for them.
It could not be an happier ending for the season of the Swiss players, both Stan Wawrinka and Roger Federer were aiming at this trophy for long and after the little case of last week, team spirit prevailed and today it won against a fierce France.
After the last dropshot of the world number two closed the decisive last match of this 2014 Davis Cup, happiness flowed unstoppable in the Swiss team and probably will flow until very late tonight.
“It’s amazing feeling,” said Wawrinka. “The best. We all know how it’s great to watch such an amazing player when he’s playing good tennis.
“Yeah, Roger, I still love you,” he added laughing, as to put an end to the unnecessary discussions of the press about the possible feud caused by Mirka Federer in London. “You know, I didn’t watch the beginning. I was watching from the locker room. I knew it was important to be ready in case for the last match. And I was ready.”
For Federer it was one of the few titles to miss in his palmarès, so the importance of this win was even bigger.
“I mean, everything feels a bit slightly different,” he said. “But at the end it’s a tennis match. You feel great emotions. You’re unbelievably happy and relieved.
“We wanted this clearly very badly, especially being up 2‑1. You inch yourself closer and closer. Clearly seeing Stan out there, the rest of the team supporting you, you push extra.
“It was definitely one of the better feelings in my career, no doubt about it.”
But this win was not only a another prize to add to his career, so he added: “I think it’s an amazing day for sports in our country, in Switzerland. We’re a smaller country. We don’t win bigger events every other week. So from that standpoint I think it’s a big day.
“I hope it can create things for the future for sports in general. If tennis, that’s great, but even for other sports, to inspire a generation and other people to invest more into sports.
“For me personally, obviously I’m unbelievably happy because I’ve been playing in this competition for probably almost 15 years now. At the end of the day I wanted it more for the guys and for Severin and Stan, the staff and everybody involved, you know. This is one for the boys.”
A completely different atmosphere featured the press conference of the losing team, who, however, did not look for excuses, nor blamed any of their choices.
Arnaud Clemant, captain of the French team, stood his ground on the decision to play on clay.
“I still think it’s a good choice,” he said. “I believe we tried everything we could. We did everything well, especially in the preparation for the matches, in the way we approached the final.”
He went on explaining why he decided to make Richard Gasquet play rather than Jo-Wilfred Tsonga: “This weekend, after the matches on Friday, Jo felt a pain in his arm. It’s a pain he had recently and came back on this occasion. Saturday morning he made a test to see if he was able to play the doubles. It was not the case.”
When he was asked why he did not reveal that after the doubles’ match, he replied: “I have a lot of friendship with you, but I believe the answer is obvious. We don’t want to give information to the opponents at that particular stage of the weekend.
“I think we have to leave them with some uncertainty until the last minute. Honestly, I don’t like to give you wrong information at some moments during the tie. Maybe some of you were doubting what I was saying, but I couldn’t do otherwise because the goal was to protect the group.
“It might just create an extra doubt in the opponent’s mind if they don’t know who they’re going to face the next morning, and it’s my duty to keep this secret.”
His trick obviously did not play out the way he hoped, as Federer played a superb match against Gasquet, who said to be very disappointed to lose in three sets.
“It’s always difficult, but I tried my best,” he said. “I just need to improve. He played very good, the first time he played that level against me. I think he played the best match against me, I want to say. Of course, he has experience with these kind of matches. It’s a big disappointment for me to lose.
Someone in the press room suggested that he played very well too, but the Swiss was simply unbeatable, but he did not agree.
“No, it’s not true. I made many mistakes in my returns. Sometimes I let him play. This you can’t do. So I did make mistakes.
“I should have hit the ball harder and at a higher level. But it’s extremely difficult to play him. I felt he was extremely experienced. He played dozens of those matches. When you play him, you know he’s not going to make a mistake, he’s not going to give any point away. He has a lot of talent. He always hits the right shot. His shots are of a very high quality. I believe he’s one of the toughest opponents you can have today.”
