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THE CHAMPIONSHIPS


July 9, 2018


Adrian Mannarino


Wimbledon, London, England

R. FEDERER/A. Mannarino

6-0, 7-5, 6-4

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. Was this your first match on Centre Court?
ADRIAN MANNARINO: No, it was actually the fourth one.

Q. That said, could you describe the primary differences, if there are any, as a competitor playing on that court, reacting to the crowd, and in particular playing Federer on that court? Is it an additional challenge?
ADRIAN MANNARINO: The fact that it is the Centre Court and the fact that it is a lot of people in the stands, it's not changing anything, actually. The only different thing is that it's Federer in front of me, and he's a really good opponent. It makes the job harder.

Yeah, this is what is not easy to handle, but the fact that it was on the Centre Court didn't change nothing.

Q. And your level of play, of course, improved markedly. Was that a function of getting used to Federer or finding more within yourself?
ADRIAN MANNARINO: Well, I think the last time I did a little bit better than this time, so, no, I didn't really get used to his game, but it was not easy today. He played well. No, I'm just trying to do as good as I could, but he was too good, and obviously I didn't do better than last time.

Q. You showed what a good player you are in the second and third set. Just wondering for players, when they come to face Federer -- obviously the first set was very quick. Is there a kind of intimidation factor, do you think, amongst players? Like it takes some time to kind of just get used to the play or aura of the person you play?
ADRIAN MANNARINO: Well, the thing is that he's starting pretty well all the time, and he's playing really well.

Maybe sometimes when we need time to get into the match and we're not playing our best in the beginning against someone average, then it's enough. But against Federer you have to play really well from the beginning.

So this is what is not easy to deal with. But last time we played each other, I won the first set, so it's not every day the same. But I think that today he was playing well from the beginning, so it was not easy.

Q. Do you think that's sort of something maybe people miss about him, that he generally starts a match very, very strongly compared to a lot of players? He doesn't kind of ease his way into the match?
ADRIAN MANNARINO: Yeah. Yeah, the thing with Roger is that he is making you work all the time, like, he's not giving you any points. He's returning all the time unless if you're really, really serving well, but he push you to serve the best you can do.

Yeah, from the start of the match, you have to play well. He's making you work very hard from the beginning. Yeah, this is something we are not expecting, especially if we are kind of stressed, you know, to face him.

Yeah, it's many different things that we have to deal with from the beginning of the match till the end, and it's never easy. This is why it makes it even harder to play against him.

Q. Just on a different topic, the head of Wimbledon today said that because some matches here are clashing with football matches in World Cup, fans will now be allowed to watch football on their phones in matches. Lots of players have quite strong thoughts on that and say it can be very distracting. Wondering what are your thoughts on that?
ADRIAN MANNARINO: I don't have any thought about it. I mean, last time I have been playing during the French team matches, and no one reacted about anything. So, no, I mean, I haven't been distracted any time with the football stuff. And anyway, I'm not really into it. To me, I don't have any thought about it. It's just like if nothing was going on at the moment.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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