Some interesting quotes at the US Open which you may have missed…
Flavia Pennetta: “For me, junior doesn’t count. So I don’t know if it’s helping or not. But, for me, we give too much important things to juniors. I mean, juniors are juniors. They are young. They are babies.”
Eugenie Bouchard: “I never had any Canadian influences. I looked up to the best: Steffi Graf, Maria Sharapova. Any great champions, I looked up to.”
Mirjana Lucic-Baroni: “I have been putting in the hours all these years but until you make the results it looks like you’re kind of half there. I feel goofy right now. I feel like I’m fifteen now. I feel so excited. It’s crazy…I’m 32 but I don’t feel like that. I still have so much desire. People don’t realize how much I want this and how hard I worked for this.”
Nicole Gibbs: “I never hit with her (Catherine Bellis) but a lot of my teammates at Stanford used to hit with her when I was at school. They would come back and say: This girl is going to be amazing. She’s such a good hitter.”
Catherine Bellis: “I think (beating Cibulkova) is going to give me more confidence going into juniors (as top seed) and definitely believing that I can beat whoever I play in juniors, for sure, if I play well. So I think it just gave me a lot more confidence.”
John Isner: “I know the US women have a lot of young players coming up that are very good. I don’t think the men are really that far behind. Maybe on paper they are but we have some good players as well…I’m not worried about the whole state of American tennis. I’m just doing what I can do as best as I can. Simple as that.”
Victor Estrella Burgos: “I come from like very down. I come from Dominican Republic. I think I’m opening way to another player. This makes me more hungry to do better and better. I’m the winner, not just for today. I’m the winner, I’m top hundred, I have my entry to US Open. I’m a winner already. But now the winner is very different, it’s bigger… I’m in the third round. I don’t have any idea before when I was eighteen years old about this tournament, this kind of tournament. But now I’m enjoying so much. This makes me strong, doesn’t matter if I’m 38 whatever, makes me strong. Every time when I get into the court, make me strong… I want to be top 50. This is what I want now. After that, if I get, I have to start next step. Now I’m going to get to the top 50. This is what I want now. I just thinking about that.”
Lleyton Hewitt: “Just living the dream I guess. You grow up. Just wanted to be to play majors and play Davis Cup for Australia. I have been fortunate to do it for an awfully long time. Obviously the three biggest things – winning Davis Cup and winning a Grand Slam and getting to number one.”
Serena Williams: “I think Taylor (Townsend) is a really great player. I believe she does everything well. She’s one of the few players that can come to the net and volley as well as she has unbelievable handspeed with her racquet. She’s really unbelievable.”
Serena Williams: “We actually offered to play best of five sets many times. They don’t want the women to play five sets. They prefer we play three sets. We’ve given that offer many many many occasions. But it’s not what the tournaments, in general, desire.”
Jared Donaldson: “It was in December last year, for three weeks (I hit with Roger Federer in Dubai). I was fortunate enough to hit with him for three weeks. Obviously it did a lot for my game just because I got to see what the best ever did and how he trained and what he worked on, how he worked on it. Basically his game. I got to feel his ball, play points against him. It did so much for me.”
Roger Federer: “I think (tennis) is pretty much good the way it is right now. You know, as you move along, you always have to keep adjusting to what the consumers want a little bit, but also stay true to what tennis is all about. I think we have full stadiums, these great stadiums around the world, because of exactly how it is right now. You can always improve things and stuff but I actually think it’s very good as it is right now. So I wouldn’t change a whole lot.”
Ernests Gulbis: “For me, this ATP University didn’t bring me much. For example, I didn’t like what they said about how you must talk to the press. For me, everybody should be individual, as I said many times. And through that, everybody’s trying to be the same.”
Ernests Gulbis when asked if there are vampires in his game?: “I remember you. You always try to push me with some stupid questions. I remember you already for the last three tournaments.”
Sam Querrey: “I feel I’m much better than my ranking. If I keep playing like I played today I will keep going in the right direction and hopefully get back into the top 20. I have now played seven good matches in a row and so if I continue that my ranking will keep going in the right direction.”
Roger: "Tennis is very good right now"
Bryan · September 7, 2014 at 6:22 pm
Nicole Gibbs: “I never hit with her (Catherine Bellis) but a lot of my teammates at Stanford used to hit with her when I was at school. They would come back and say: This girl is going to be amazing. She’s such a good hitter.â€
Not surprising given CiCi is from Atherton, just a 15 minute drive from Stanford. My favorite part of the women’s US Open this year was seeing Nicole and CiCi breakthrough. Nicole especially needed the money, and WTA points.
Scoop Malinowski · September 8, 2014 at 9:36 am
Gibbs sure did breakout. She had two big 3 set wins this year at the Open against WTA 4l Caroline Garcia and #23 Pavlyuchenkova. Those are the kinds of wins that suggest Gibbs can be a top 25 player. Saw her play for years in US Open juniors and she also starred at Stanford, looks like she’s finally putting it together. Safe to say she’s probably the best NCAA hope to become a solid WTA pro. For Bellis, she obviously is a wonder talent, to be that good at thirteen, hitting so well with college players is remarkable. Hopefully this breakout by Bellis did not come too early and it doesn’t mess her up by putting too much expectations on her hardly broad shoulders. (Lucic, Stevenson, Jaeger, Daja Bedanova, etc.)