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U.S. OPEN

September 5, 2010

Tommy Robredo

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK

T. ROBREDO/M. Llodra
3-6, 7-6, 6-4, 2-1 (ret.)

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. Were you surprised at how suddenly this ended? Other than the treatment he had, did you know he was this badly injured or sick?
TOMMY ROBREDO: Well, I still don't know what he has. But obviously when it happened to him, it seemed that something was wrong with him. I don't know, it was very tough for me to play because he was bad, but in a way he was serving slower. There was a little bit of wind. He was a little bit more difficult to return.
Also it seems he was not moving, and he was volleying great volleys. It was tough to play with a guy like him today. But, anyway, hopefully he has nothing and he can recover soon.

Q. Everybody is now calling it the Spanish Armada has landed. You've always done well here. How does this whole group make you feel?
TOMMY ROBREDO: Well, maybe we change the playing, but we have been there forever, no? I think last 10 years, the average is 13 players in the top 10. So I don't think is that dramatic of the playing. We are always there.
In one tournament we can do great job. Normally the people outside from Spain, they think that we can do good only in Paris because it's clay. But, I don't know, I think if you check the results on the last four, five Grand Slams, there is always a Spaniard in quarters, semis, besides Nadal maybe, no?
So obviously, Nadal, it's a part because he's No. 1 in the world and you know he's going to win, he's gonna be there. But there is Ferrer, Almagro, Lopez, Verdasco, myself, and a lot of other players like Ferrero, Moya. The last couple years we have been there, so I think that it's not strange that we have a lot of players playing in the top rounds.

Q. You hit the lob winner, and then he walked off the court. Where you surprised by that?
TOMMY ROBREDO: Well, I was surprised that he was still playing the fourth set, because obviously there was something very wrong with him. But I knew from when I was 5-3 on the second set that if I won the second, I broke him early, he will go out.
But then I broke him early and he was there, and he wasn't losing the serve till the beginning of the fourth set. But then I knew that if I broke him it would be the end.
Obviously, he was not fit enough to keep playing. So the only matter was the timing if I could do the break or not. Because if not, he was serving, and it was very tough to return him.
Anyway, it was very tough to play. But I knew it will happen. When I saw the lob going in, I knew, yeah.

Q. Spanish players are very close, great success in Davis Cup. How difficult is it for you to go into a tournament and have to play against some of your fellow countrymen?
TOMMY ROBREDO: Well, it's another player. If I have a brother and I play with him, I want to beat him. It's no problem with that, no? The only different is that maybe the night before you have been going to dinner together.
But, I don't know, I think that it's better to have 10 players from Spain than having 10 players from another country. Like this, we can have fun. We can go in together. We can have a bigger group.
When you are traveling as a tennis player, if you are the only one from one country, it's very tough to fly all over the world, because then you go dinner alone nearly every week, like this.
In every tournament we have friends. We can go to dinner if not with one, with another. We make a big group of friends. That's helpful for us.

End of FastScripts

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