A bumper edition of the ATP Tennis Podcast looks ahead to the Nitto ATP Finals…
NOVAK DJOKOVIC ON BEING WORLD NUMBER ONE – “If you’re aiming to be Top 5, Top 10, Top 15 in the world and want to reach a certain level of consistency and that’s your goal, that’s fine. But it’s a completely different story if that’s your goal and that’s all that interests you. I was never interested in being anything other than No. 1.
JANNIK SINNER ON PLAYING IN FRONT OF A HOME CROWN IN TURIN – “For sure the crowd is behind me and obviously I will try my best to make them happy and win as many matches as possible. In a way I have to enjoy the moment. It’s going to be a good moment for me and hopefully it’s going to be a good tournament.”
DANIIL MEDVEDEV ON THE NITTO ATP FINALS BEING A ROUND-ROBIN EVENT – “You play against the best players in the world, so sure it’s going to be tough for you. The round robin changes, if you lose a match, you get another chance, but when you go into the tournament it’s to try to not lose this match.”
ALEXANDER ZVEREV ON MAKING IT TO TURIN AFTER INJURY – “In the beginning I was nowhere near making Turin. I was just thinking about how to win matches and it kind of turned around in the summer for me. From then on it was kind of fun to play tennis matches again.”
RAJEEV RAM AND JOE SALISBURY ON THIER INDIFFERENT YEAR – “It’s tough to say it’s not a good year when you win a Grand Slam, but overall we’ve not been happy with how a lot of it has gone. Had we not won the US Open then it would have been a very poor year by our standards.”
SANTIAGO GONZALEZ ON PLAYING ELITE TENNIS AT THE AGE OF 40 – “If you’d have asked me the question two years ago, I would have said that 40 is a good year to quit, but now I’m playing my best tennis. I’m healthy, I have no injuries, I’m enjoying travelling, I’m enjoying playing, I’m enjoying competing, so I would say I have another two or three years at least.”
GUSTAVO KUERTEN ON WHAT IT’S LIKE TO END THE YEAR AS WORLD No 1 – “It was for sure the best achievement for me as a human being. The passion, the love, the emotion. Going to my mother to give her back the hug that brought us the No. 1 sport in the world.”
– Presented by Seb Lauzier
– Interviews by Chris Bowers, Candy Reid, Jill Craybas and Ursin Caderas
– Djokovic, Medvedev, Tsitsipas, Sinner and Gustavo Kuerten features by ATP Uncovered