There’s something about Mary

Excerpts:

Q: Did you actually expect to win the title when you teamed up with Mary?

You don’t normally expect to win going into any tournament; it’s a tough ask as there are many like-minded out there. Again, it is a question of knowing, believing how good you are and take it from there.

Q: Are we going to see more of this partnership?

I must say that we enjoyed ourselves out there. About playing together, both of us, at this juncture, are not sure. Mary has got singles as her priority and one has to respect that. Let’s see in a couple of weeks, before resuming the talk.

Q: So, things should be in place by the time US Open arrives.

We have not thought that far. Even Wimbledon was not planned. It happened accidentally.

Q: How did Mary react after winning?

It’s her first mixed doubles Slam and winning it at Wimbledon made it all the more exciting for her.

Q: Among all your Slam titles, how would you rate this one?

Good… considering expectations and circumstances, particularly when Wimbledon itself seemed a non-starter for me.

However, the target, as mentioned before, is getting ten.

Q: How would you describe Mary as a doubles player in view of being a doubles specialist?

Mary is overall a very good tennis player. She’s won doubles before (French Open 2000 with Martina Hingis) so she knows what it takes. It’s just that she’s not played much of the team stuff. She’s a hard hitter of the ball and doubles is all about who plays the big points well and she does that well.

Q: In the run-up to the title, which match was the best?

Let’s begin with having a tough draw to negotiate, then running into defending champions Wayne and Cara Black, who have a decade of experience together and finally the semis against an equally talented doubles specalists Jonas Bjorkman and Lisa Raymond were two great matches that set the course.

Q: Doubles is all about years of coordination, how did you manage to get this ‘accidental’ team up get going?

It’s tough to answer that. Doubles is all about chemistry, which cannot be created, it needs to be developed. Look at Todd Woodbridge and me. Between us, we had over a 110 titles, but on-court it just could not work. In these cases, (teaming up at the last moment) it’s a matter of clicking — it clicked in our case and that’s that.

Q: Did you have any special celebrations?

Nothing really, just spent time at dinner with friends and family and then went straight to the Wimbledon ball.