THE CHAMPIONSHIPS

July 10, 2022

Goran Ivanisevic

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. Given what Novak has been through this year, Australia, losing to Rafa, talk about the mental resilience he's shown.

GORAN IVANISEVIC: Yeah, it's very emotional. If I can say it was a shit year, a tough year, especially for him, but also for us that were close to him.

Being there in Australia, everything after, it took him a while to keep going and find his form. Then losing to Rafa, I mean, you can lose to Rafa any time in Paris.

But for me he was a favorite here. Before the tournament he really played some unbelievable tennis. But you still need to win the tournament, so it was not easy.

All this craziness with the points... But Grand Slam is a Grand Slam. He's 21. He really deserve it. He really deserve it. It's really for him makes a lot of different.

Q. I think you need to tell Novak who actually played in the '92 final.

GORAN IVANISEVIC: I was listening to him. I said, Man, it was me in the '92 final. I screw it up and I lost it. Sampras was in the semifinal losing to me. You saw some other Sampras maybe year after, but doesn't matter who won '92. Was not me, was not Sampras, was Agassi. But it's important he won today.

Q. How did you prepare this final where you had Novak playing such a peculiar player as Nick Kyrgios?

GORAN IVANISEVIC: You cannot prepare match against Nick Kyrgios. Nick Kyrgios is a genius, tennis genius. He doesn't know what he's going to play next in the point. We just concentrate what Novak has to do, the things he has to do, the things he has to be careful. When somebody serving like Nick Kyrgios, for me is the best server in the game by far. Unbelievable tennis player. Is very unpredictable.

So it's impossible to make a tactics. Is no tactics. 15 minutes, best returner in the world, he does not touch his serve. You get the chance, then he breaks him.

Key point was to concentrate on what Novak has to do, and just to stick to those little things to be ready for the big serves, for the big second serve winners. But also he knew on this stage, when Nick starts to talk, he's going to be vulnerable. You know, that happened. Happened in the third set when Nick was 40-Love up, 4-All, suddenly Novak broke him and he was talking to his box. That's Nick.

You need to take every chance you get because you don't have too many chances.

Q. How have you found added responsibility since Marian Vijda left the team?

GORAN IVANISEVIC: I mean, the team already three years, so is not... Me and Marian, he had half tournaments, me half tournaments. I was here last year with Novak. I was in Australia last year.

It was great honor and pleasure working with Marian. Was easier because is 50% of the stress. Now I have 100% of the stress. Look at me, I'm all white (smiling). That's the change.

But that's the job. When you coach the best, for me is the best player, then you need to keep up with the stress. But it's also nice when he wins Grand Slams.

Q. You talk about it being a shit year. Novak has also spoken about how difficult those weeks after Australia were for him. Could you share a bit about how you saw him come back to tennis and how hard it was for him to find the love for the sport when he had such a difficult personal experience?

GORAN IVANISEVIC: You know, when something happens to the person - okay, we talk about Novak - but anything happen to him in Australia. People, after that they never come back to tennis or to anything.

This was a huge thing what happened to him. We all expected from him after couple of weeks, Okay, forget about Australia, let's go back and practice. It's not happening like this.

It took a long time, Monte-Carlo, Belgrade, then he started to play better, Madrid, Rome. Even he played well in Paris, but Rafa was better player that night.

For some people, they don't recover. They will never play tennis. This was a big shock. Was shock for me, and I was there. I was free. Imagine for him.

Unbelievable how he recover and how he got through that. It's really for me heroic because it was not easy to digest all the thing and come back to play tennis. Then you're thinking, Why you have to play tennis?

I mean, if you say three, four weeks before French Open, he was not allowed to play French Open, and you cannot make a schedule because one country change the rules. Now you can enter, now you cannot enter. We cannot make any schedule. We practice but we don't know for what we are practicing. It was not easy.

Now it's better now. You know where you can go, where you cannot go. It's more easier.

Q. Was there ever a moment where you doubted that Novak would get back to this point?

GORAN IVANISEVIC: No, no. People like him you don't doubt. He's a great champion. They say maybe took him a long time, but didn't take him a long time. Took him exact time that he needed to recover and to digest all the things what happened to him.

I never doubt him. We were there. Not me, but all the team, everybody there working. But just he needed to find the peace. Like I said, was not easy to plan anything because one week he can play, next week he cannot play at that tournament. It's always how many cases of corona up, down.

It was not easy, but this is the result. Today, this is the result. This trophy, this joy on the Centre Court. It's so beautiful. This is paying off.

Q. What do you do now? You talk about how difficult it was in the spring. As of right now he can't come to the United States. Doesn't look like that policy is going to be lifted soon. Do you think he's just going to take the summer off? How do you as a coach keep him up to a certain level?

GORAN IVANISEVIC: There is one movie back home, is a 'Long, Hot Summer'. This is going to be for me a long, hot summer vacation. I going to have vacation from today, I don't know till when.

I don't know. Maybe Biden will change his mind.

Q. Will Novak change his mind? He's the one that can really control that.

GORAN IVANISEVIC: He's going to come later, so you ask him that.

Today my holiday started. My vacation, deserve it. I go back home. It's a nice summer. Beautiful. If he goes to States, it's going to be beautiful. If he don't go to States, what can we do? It's another tournaments. We see.

A lot of crazy things happening in the world. It's come every day something is changing, something new. We see what's going to happen. Still we have, what, one and a half months. Anything happen or not happen.