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WESTERN & SOUTHERN FINANCIAL GROUP MASTERS

July 28, 2008

Dmitry Tursunov

CINCINNATI, OHIO

D. TURSUNOV/M. Safin
7-6, 6-4

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. Despite all the distracting angry stuff at the end, there was some pretty good tennis in this match, wasn't there?
DMITRY TURSUNOV: I think there was pretty good serving, so it was pretty hard to have any rallies. But, yeah, we managed to squeeze how out a few good rallies.
I can really sympathize with some of the angry stuff towards the end, because it's really not the best time to call a foot fault. If he is making that many he should have been told that throughout the match, Hey, you're coming way too close to the line.
There was one match in challengers where the guy got called a foot fault on a second serve and he was serving at 5-6 in the tiebreak. This is probably just as bad, I think.
Because once he's loses his serve he really has no -- he has very small chances of getting back judging by the way I was serving the entire match.
So I can understand frustration. I'm just very happy that I was on my side and not on his side at that point, meaning that it didn't happen to me.

Q. Has it happened to you in the past?
DMITRY TURSUNOV: Well, some bad calls have happened. It's very hard for me to judge whether that was a good call or a bad call. I'm just arguing is that the timing of it is very bad.
I doubt that those three points are the only points where he foot faulted. You know what I mean? So you can call it. It's okay if he did it time and time again and he was warned about it.
But it didn't seem like was sufficiently warned about it. I've never really seen him being called on foot faults as much as he was called ion that match, so something had to happen.

Q. What kind of relationship do you have with him? Are you buddies?
DMITRY TURSUNOV: It's hard for me to say. I don't think you can be really close friends on tour because still, at the end of the day, you have a competitive edge and you're trying to be better than the other person.
It's very hard it mix the two. But I think we're, you know, good friends, I guess. For lack of a better, word acquaintances, if you want to call it that. We're teammates a lot of times, so we have good a relationship, I think.

Q. How surprised were you with the way that final game went?
DMITRY TURSUNOV: As far as I know, I think that serve was good. So if we did challenge him it was still an ace. He wasn't going to be able to touch that serve.
So, I mean, again, I've been booed before where I've done everything right and the crowd doesn't really understand what is going on so they're quick to boo.
But in that case scenario, as far as I know, the people have looked at the replay of that point and the serve was in. As far as I know, he didn't do anything unsportsmanlike. It did seem like he walked off the court, but it wasn't like that.
It was a good serve. He knew that if he challenged it or if I challenged it they would have called it in and he still would have lost the match. Just saved the challenge.

Q. Would you have challenged that ball if he hadn't walked up to the net?
DMITRY TURSUNOV: I mean, at 40-Love it's hard to say, but it did seem pretty good. I didn't have a chance to really think about it. It's not like we challenge right of off the bat. A lot of times it takes us a couple seconds to see what's going on.
So I can't say that it was very obvious, but it seemed like a good serve. I wouldn't have been opposed to it, let's put it that way.

Q. Where do you feel your tennis is at? If I understand, you've had confidence issues yourself.
DMITRY TURSUNOV: Who doesn't? We all have confidence issues, especially men.

Q. Things seem to be going pretty well on the court.
DMITRY TURSUNOV: Well, a lot times yes, and a lot times no. But I think confidence comes with a lot of matches. I doubt that Nadal can really say that he's not confident with as many matches as he's been winning.
On the opposite hand, I think Roger is feeling a little bit vulnerable, more vulnerable than before because he has lost a couple of matches.
Granted, most of them were to Nadal, but still, losing is never a confidence-builder.
I think slowly I'm winning a little bit more matches if I can get a better understanding of where my game a compared to my opponents.
I lost close match to James and he's in top 10, so I don't really feel that I'm very far from top 10. Again, feeling that and actually moving up in the ranking is two different stories.
Hopefully I'll be able to tie a string of good matches and slowly climb up.

Q. You're in the section with Gasquet and Murray?
DMITRY TURSUNOV: Right. Gasquet is next. If he played an opponent. I don't know if he had a bye or if he played someone.
THE MODERATOR: He plays Llodra.
DMITRY TURSUNOV: Okay, so winner of Llodra and Gasquet. Again, I'm sure you're going to ask how I'm going to do against him. I've played him many times before. Actually both of them. Well, Llodra I played only once, but Gasquet I played quite a few times and have a good record against him.
I think in this draw there are no easy matches. It's a Masters Series, and, you know, I think I have a fairly good chance of winning. Again, it's going to depend a lot on how I'm going to play.
If I'm going to play well, then he's going to have to play better to beat me. Doesn't happen a lot. So, again, I should be able to concentrate on my game. If he's going to play better than me, there's not much I can do.

End of FastScripts

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