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BNP PARIBAS OPEN


March 17, 2015


Timea Bacsinszky


INDIAN WELLS, CALIFORNIA

T. BACSINSZKY/E. Svitolina
6‑4, 1‑6, 6‑1


THE MODERATOR:  Questions, please.

Q.  Why are you so damn good now?
TIMEA BACSINSZKY:  I took a magic potion.  No, that's not true.
Why?  Why?  I think, yeah, I have been working a lot on myself, as well, for a couple of years now.
Then I worked hard tennis‑wise, as well.  You know, it's tough in tennis because you put so much energy in working and getting ready for the tournaments, and then you expect right away results.
But actually, you never know the results are coming, and you just need to be patient sometimes.
Actually, I learned ‑‑ like my coach learned me this.  Well, obviously, he has done also really well with Stanislas Wawrinka before, so he had just a little experience already.  (Smiling.)
He learned me well to work and not to be waiting results right away and just to be patient and to keep on working and keep on keep trying to give my best every day on court while I'm practicing, as well as on court having a match.
Yeah, having also a good balance with private life, as well.  Getting time to disconnect, to think about other things, being like "normal" person.  I mean, it's quite difficult sometimes actually believe it or not.
But it's tough to disconnect from tennis because you for sure want to improve so much.  So you only think about that and you have to learn also.  It's like if you're working at an office.  You cannot be all the time like, I have to answer my e‑mails and stuff.  You also need to be, Okay, put the laptop on the side and do something else.
Actually, I learned ‑‑I'm doing it better I think right now to do this on and off so I can enjoy also like the life of a daughter, a sister, a best friend, a girlfriend.  Normal life as well next to tennis.

Q.  Your private life, your family life was not always as calm as it is now.  Can you describe a little bit of what happened to you?  I don't think some of these people know what you've been through.
TIMEA BACSINSZKY:  Google it and you find a lot of stuff about it.  (Laughter.)  I talked a lot actually already about it.  I want to slowly stop talking about it as well.
Because, I mean, I'm happy to share my experience, but at the same time, you know, getting all the time back, I mean, I want to look forward also sometimes.
But I understand it's part of me, as well.  Well, I have been a kid of like a syndrome of pushy parents.  I think it happens worldwide.  Yeah, sometimes, I mean, many, many stories, they never get heard because the players are not good enough and they don't want to talk about it if they are not good enough.
Anyway, it's happening a lot, especially in tennis, because ‑‑ especially in women's tennis, because for sure, as a woman, as a young girl, you can never go against the power of a dad.  You have no money or nothing.
Actually, you have no chance to get out of it.  Or you tank your tennis career and you lose matches.
But, well, I always loved competition, and, on the tennis court I know that no one had, how do you say, the power on me.  Because I was my own boss actually.  Like when I was playing a match, even if my dad told me, Okay, play cross, I would say, Well, I'm going to go down the line.
But I had to manage to win the match, because otherwise it would not be okay.
So I was quite sneaky, actually, because I was loving ‑‑I mean, loving.  I was loving that at this moment no one could control me.  They had no power on me.  But at the same time I had to move my butt to win the match, because otherwise I would be in trouble.
Well, yeah, you're going to be here for ages if I tell everything.  (Laughter.)  Because I don't know where to start.  My story is so rich, actually.
But, anyway, just to try to make it quick, I guess I was really good when I was a kid, because, you know, when you have this fear of losing a match because you know you're going to get in trouble, sometimes your instinct of survival make you play better or make you take decisions.
Yeah, it's not conscious, because you don't realize that as a kid.  Like now I can look back way better on my childhood and everything.  Before when I was a kid I was not understanding anything.  I was just doing it.
But, well, while I was really good, I was I think pretty smart on court.  I was reading the game of other ones really well, as well.  And, well, I had to win matches because otherwise my parents would fight.  I'm this kind of kid which is ‑‑I had‑‑ I have Hungarian parents but they live in Switzerland.  At home I was kind of in a prison, and when I was at school I was looking at all the happy kids around me with a family and stuff.  I was kind of wondering, Why am I the only kid in this class which is not having fun at home?
Well, at a certain point, I said, no, No, I don't want that anymore.  So I was kind of all the time putting pressure on my dad, saying, I'm not going to play tennis anymore.  I'm not going to play tennis anymore.  But at the same time, I was so good, so everyone would tell me around me, Why don't you want to play?  You're so talented.  You're gonna win this and that.  You're going to be so famous and everything.
For a kid, you can make believe anything to a kid.  You just think at some point my poor mom was also part of this, because she was kind of saying, Okay, if you don't argue with your dad, I buy you jeans.  But she wanted to do good, but at the same time she wasn't.  Then I was like, Okay, I'm going to have a jeans so I'm going to shut my mouth.
But was it helping?  Well, I'm just so glad that I'm kind of survived.  I didn't get to do drugs or alcohol or whatever.  Okay, yes, certain part of my career I was partying way too much because it was just too heavy for me to have it inside.
But, well, at the age of 15 I kind of forced my mom to divorce.  Otherwise I told her, Okay, if you divorce I stay with you, but if you don't divorce, you're both not gonna see me anymore.
I would take my stuff out.  I was smart enough, and how do you say...  (in French.)

Q.  You get by?
TIMEA BACSINSZKY:  I don't know.

Q.  Manage?
TIMEA BACSINSZKY:  Yeah.  Anyway, I would manage to find a way to win enough money, I don't know, to a shitty job or whatever.

Q.  You worked at a hotel?
TIMEA BACSINSZKY:  Yeah, but not at the age of 15.  But I said that at the age of 15 that I would find a way just to survive.  So it was okay.  I would do school or whatever, uni, I don't know.
My mom divorced, and that was the time that I could somehow breathe.  Then still I continued playing.  I had a coach.  He tried graduated at UCLA actually.  I worked with him for eight years.
He did a great job.  He was 25 when he started with a 15 year old kid, and he brought me 37 in the world.  He tried his best and he did a great job and I'm really thankful, but at a certain point he couldn't do anymore because I wasn't able to give more.  I was already giving my best, but my best was not the thing I'm giving right now.
It was like 98% and the 2% were missing.  Then I stepped back and did something else.  I decided not to have contact with my dad anymore.  Probably forever.  And, well, I have a great contact with my mom.  I have half sisters and half brothers which are really great.  Well, I just choose the people I would be surrounded of.
Yeah, I just learned a lot about myself and did some work with a psychologist.  Because, you know, going to a psychologist is not a bad thing.  Actually, before, when psychologists didn't exist, there were priests.  No one talks about it, but now they are going to psychologists because they think they have a problem.  No.
Just before people were talking to priests.  That's why the job was not existing.  Anyway, it's not a shame or something.  I think it just makes me happier ‑‑ like not happier person, but I just understand better how I behave and how maybe other people behave.  It just makes me live a more comfortable life.

Q.  Look at you now.
TIMEA BACSINSZKY:  Yeah.  I talk a lot.  But it's your fault, though.

Q.  Tears at the end of this match.  You were so emotional at the end.
TIMEA BACSINSZKY:  Well, I just can't believe I'm winning 15 matches in a row.  I mean, when I was looking at the stats of Federer while he was doing that so many couple years ago, I was like, How does he do that?
Well, I'm really, really far from him, actually, but I get like 10% of feeling what he might have at that time.  But it's just, yeah, I mean, I'm tired.  It was tough first set.  I was running everywhere.  Usually my heartbeat doesn't get so high, but I promise you the first set my heartbeat was almost at 200.
I was like, Okay, why did I drink two coffees before the match.  I was blaming myself.  Then I said, Okay, well, let's try to find a solution.  Why didn't I think about the solution before?  Well, I tried, but it was not working.
So sometimes it's like with work.  You have to get patient, and then you (In French.)  You take the fruits.  You collect the fruits later on.
Yeah.  That's why I got so emotional, because it's just hell of a story.  (Smiling.)  Just so proud of it, yeah.  Happiness.  Yeah, I don't know.  No words.  I cannot even say.

Q.  Earlier today, because you have been waiting so much, Serena Williams said you have been on Tennis Channel a lot.  She had been watching a lot of your matches.
TIMEA BACSINSZKY:  Really?

Q.  She must have a good scouting report on you.  Can you talk about the next round a little bit and what your thoughts are being watched so much by Serena and her dad?
TIMEA BACSINSZKY:  Her dad?  Is he here?

Q.  No, he's not here, but they were watching it on TV.
TIMEA BACSINSZKY:  I mean, it's going to be really, really a tough match.  I mean, she's the best player for years and she's an amazing athlete.  Like really seriously.  How can she be so good?  I mean, she's all the time turning the matches around and finding a solution.  She's‑‑ yeah, she's just amazing.  She should be an inspiration for every athlete like in tennis, but also in like men or women, any kind of athlete, because she has this power.
She has this willing and this fierce.  You know, it's going to be a tough one.  (Smiling.)  But, well, I will have definitely give all my heart and my soul to try to do my best and try to find a solution.  If she has been looking at a lot at my matches, it means she is professional.  But I never doubted about this.  Yeah, she's going to be prepared.  She's going to be really hard to beat.
From my part, right now I still have a couple of hours just to kind of, you know, enjoy my 15th win.  I never get used to it.  So far.  And then tomorrow probably I will talk about it with my coach.  I played her once, but it has been a long time ago.  It was on clay.  It's going to be different.

Q.  But you have some momentum going into this match.
TIMEA BACSINSZKY:  Yeah, but she too.  Someone told me she's on 14th match winning streak.  So, anyway, 14, 15, it's not a big difference.
Yeah, it's going to be a tough one.

Q.  You have been turning things around a lot, though, too.  You have won from behind three matches in a row.  Has something changed in terms of you being able to come back like that for you?
TIMEA BACSINSZKY:  I mean, are you asking like things have changed...

Q.  Just if something has clicked in terms of just being able to come back from a deficit.  You were saying that about Serena, that she can change a match.  You have been doing so successfully now five times in the last seven or eight matches, I think.
TIMEA BACSINSZKY:  Well, proud of myself knowing I never give up.  I have this ability to believe in myself at any time.  I think this probably is one of the only things what I'm taking from my childhood, is that I had really to fight until the last point.  So I was kind of forced to do that, otherwise, yeah, it would not have been good for me.
So, yeah, I know I have, yeah, all the time this thing in my mind that there is a solution.  There is not only problem.  There are not only problems.  There are definitely solutions.
So it's fun also to all the time seek for the small pace where you can just get into it and, yeah, find a solution to turn the match around.  It's kind of fun.  This makes the sport also so interesting, and so fun to play, as well.
I mean, even if I would lose today I would have been as well, okay, for sure, sad.  But at the same time, I would have known that I gave my best and I tried everything to, yeah, to turn around.
The other one is ‑‑ can be‑‑ I mean, can also win the match.  I mean, if they win against me, I want all the time give them credits, as well, because it says that they would be like too strong for me on like the day.
Sorry, my English is so bad right now.  Sometimes I lose my language and then it comes back.  So the problem was speaking many languages.  Then you never speak one properly.
But, yeah, well, I think I answered almost the question.  I think.  Sorry.

Q.  Can you remember much about your last match against Serena?  I think it was quite eventful.  You dropshotted her second serve and she got really angry.
TIMEA BACSINSZKY:  Yeah, I remember of dropshotting her twice in a row on her second serve.  Kick wide on advantage side.  Well, then on deuce side she served me a winner serve on T and shot it at me.  Well, you want to dropshot this?
I remember that.  I remember like I kind of laughed.  But I loved this.  Yeah, I loved ‑‑ at that time I loved this reality of like trying to get the control of the other one.
But, well, otherwise I remember I had like something‑‑ a brilliant, like something brilliant on my tooth and she asked me, Is it a real diamond or not?  I said, Well, no.  My mom's a dentist, and I told her if she wants to pass by Switzerland my mom would love to like stick one to her teeth.

Q.  Was that the long talk at the end of the match?
TIMEA BACSINSZKY:  Yeah, exactly.  She told me that I have to teach her the dropshots.  I said, Well, you have to teach me the rest, then.  (Laughter.)

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports




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