"Fight and Belief"

Monday, May 24, 2010

Andy’s becoming an expert at five set matches and after a second win over Gasquet from two sets to love down, the secret of his success was out.

“You need to chase everything down and fight hard and believe in yourself, he said. “That’s it.”

Whether it really is that simple, who knows – but it worked against Gasquet on Monday, a man who underlined why he won in Nice last week with two impeccable sets of tennis.

“He was just ripping balls,” said Andy. “It’s difficult when guys are playing like that. I looked up at one point and he’d hit 59 winners and 30 unforced errors.”

Gasquet was awesome, but not for long enough. Fatigue and injury eventually took their toll, giving Andy the momentum going into the decisive fifth set.

After the Frenchman pretty much conceded the fourth set to regroup mentally and physically for one final push, Andy felt he did a decent job of keeping the Frenchman pegged back.

“You could take your eye off the ball a little bit, but I didn’t today,” added Andy. “When I saw he was struggling, yeah, just kept him moving as much as possible.”

Any five set match on clay will take its toll physically. With Gasquet it was the legs, with Andy it was his knee.

“It’s sore – my knee hurts,” he said. “I just have to try and manage it. It hurts at different parts of the year, I can’t do anything about it. It’s just something I was born with, and will have to deal with for my whole career.”

Luckily he has a day to rest. He’ll sleep late, recover well, and practice on Tuesday afternoon to get ready for another test in the form of Juan Ignacio Chela.

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