TENNIS AUSTRALIAN OPEN – 28th of January 2015. N.Djokovic d. M.Raonic 7-6, 6-4, 6-2. An interview with Milos Raonic
Q. What is the dominating feeling after a match like this?
MILOS RAONIC: Everything will be okay.
Q. How important was it to win the first set?
MILOS RAONIC: It obviously has an importance, but I think we’re both at an experienced level where we can find our way around. I don’t think it’s a deciding factor. I just think it gave him a bit more belief, and he didn’t allow me to organize my game.
Q. How did you feel about your serve tonight?
MILOS RAONIC: I wish I would have served better in certain moments, but I didn’t lose because of my serve.
Q. Can you describe how well he returns your serve compared to other guys?
MILOS RAONIC: He’s good at making a play. He does a good job at putting the return deep. But I think it’s not just that aspect. He did a good job also making me always, even if I’d get a short return, have to come up with a pretty good volley and so forth. It’s a combination of everything, not just solely his return.
Q. Was it frustrating how well he was serving? You only won 12 points off his service for the entire match. Hard to find an opening?
MILOS RAONIC: Yeah, for sure. He just didn’t allow me to organize my game. Even when he was returning well, by the end of the match he was doing a good job of playing deep and never allowing me to go forward. Obviously if you watch the footage, he was pretty much on the baseline the whole time and I was further back.
Q. Do you have an immediate postmortem with Riccardo and Ivan?
MILOS RAONIC: What do you mean?
Q. Assess the match?
MILOS RAONIC: No, we never talk about matches right away. So far because I’ve played a few matches later in the day, we’ve always kept it to talk about it before the next practice.
Q. It’s hard to compare, but you had the fantastic performance against Federer. Is it just because he’s a different player that maybe you weren’t able to pull that off again tonight?
MILOS RAONIC: Well, I think I allowed myself, against Roger, to sort of find my game a bit. I fell behind and allowed myself to sort of find answers through that second set. I just could not get my organization, like figure out my patterns and play on my terms throughout the match. I think he took that away from me. But obviously he does a better job of returning. But at the same time, Roger does a better job of holding. I gave myself more opportunity against Roger on his service games.
Q. What is your plan from here?
MILOS RAONIC: Next tournaments will be Rotterdam, Marseille.
