{"id":4456,"date":"2013-09-30T00:00:26","date_gmt":"2013-09-30T00:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tennisfrontier.com\/?p=4456"},"modified":"2015-09-20T02:03:30","modified_gmt":"2015-09-20T06:03:30","slug":"facing-federer-gilles-muller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennisfrontier.com\/archive\/news\/atp-tennis\/facing-federer-gilles-muller\/","title":{"rendered":"Facing Federer: Gilles Muller’s Take"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scoop Malinowski, who contributes to the Tennis Frontier, has released his new book “Facing Federer<\/em>“.<\/p>\n

Here is the second of three excerpts:<\/p>\n

Gilles Muller<\/strong><\/p>\n

Gilles Muller: \u201cWell, it\u2019s always a nice feeling Roger because it\u2019s what you work for, those moments to play on the stadium, big court, against a guy like Roger. It\u2019s always an amazing feeling. It\u2019s actually nice to play him because you go on court and you know you have nothing to lose, you have everything to win. And if you lose 0 and 0 it\u2019s not a bad thing actually. It\u2019s not the end of the world. If you beat him or you get a close match with him, it\u2019s fun. I enjoy those moments. I\u2019ve always been one of those guys who loved to have those big matches and I always played well in them. So I\u2019m always looking forward to have those matches.\u201d<\/p>\n

Question: Is Roger very hard for you to play against?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Gilles Muller: \u201cOf course. He\u2019s one of the greatest of all time, if not the greatest. And obviously he\u2019s a very good player. To be honest, I prefer to play him than to play Nadal, for example, or Djokovic. Because they make you suffer on the court. They make you physically suffer on the court. And Roger\u2019s more the guy who hits winners. So it\u2019s not as hard physically to play him. That\u2019s what I felt. Of course, in tennis, of what he\u2019s able to do with the ball \u2013 it\u2019s just amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Question: What is your most memorable match with Roger?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Gilles Muller: \u201cThe one I remember the most is the one at the U.S. Open when I lost in three close sets in quarterfinals. The first time I played him was pretty amazing too. I played him the first time in Indian Wells. That was back in 2005. And he had his long hair [laughs]. That was a pretty nice moment also because it was only my first year at the high level playing the big tournaments. So that was a nice moment. I like to remember the time we played at the U.S. Open because that was a close match, at least close to winning one set. So far, I\u2019ve never won a set against him. So I was very close there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Question: How are your relations with Roger off court?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Gilles Muller: \u201cWell, he\u2019s very laid back. I mean, he\u2019s always friendly to everybody, so that makes him special. Because you have a lot of those guys you barely see and they barely talk to you. And that\u2019s probably also because we speak the same language. He speaks French-German like me too, so it\u2019s easy to communicate with him. He\u2019s a pretty nice person. He\u2019s laid back. You don\u2019t feel like he\u2019s mad at stuff all the time. He seems like\u2026I\u2019ve never seen him in a bad mood. That makes him a pretty good person I think.\u201d<\/p>\n

Question: Can you share a lasting memory on or off court, maybe a conversation or an anecdote?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Gilles Muller: \u201cI spoke to him the day before we played in the quarterfinals at the U.S. Open. And I was just surprised. Because, for me, it was the first time I was at that stage in the tournament. All the press work with all the interviews and everything. And because I\u2019m coming from a country where they\u2019re not traveling to the tournaments so I have to make calls all the time and speak and give interviews in three or four different languages. So that\u2019s always tough for me. At that point, that was the first time that happened to me, so it was very tough for me. On the other hand, I just saw him and he was doing the same thing. And I guess he was doing that everyday. I was just asking how he does it. It was pretty nice to speak with him. I mean, he could have not answered to me, because we played each other the next day. I think there\u2019s a couple of guys who would not like to do that \u2013 speak to the guy or be nice to the guy you play the next day. But he was just very relaxed and he told me, \u2018Yeah, you get used to that. And it\u2019s tough, but\u2026\u2019 But it was nice. It was a nice memory.\u201d<\/p>\n

Question: Your first memory of Roger Federer?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Gilles Muller: \u201cI think\u2026I can\u2019t remember against who he was playing but I\u2019m pretty sure it was at the Basel tournament and I watched it on TV. And everybody was talking about this Federer guy being the next No. 1 and being a very good junior. And I just remember that the racquet flew everywhere on the court [laughs]. He threw his racquet like almost every point he lost. And then people said that\u2019s one of his problems, he used to be crazy on the court, and very emotional. It\u2019s amazing how he developed in that manner. He\u2019s so calm on the court now, you barely see him say a word on the court now. That was pretty funny. I remember watching that match. I can\u2019t remember who he played but the guy hit a winner against him and he just threw the racquet from the baseline to his bag. I thought that was pretty funny because when you see him now he\u2019s a totally different person.\u201d<\/p>\n

2005 Indian Wells Masters Round of 32 Federer 3-6, 2-6
\n2005 Bangkok Quarterfinal Federer 4-6, 3-6
\n2008 U.S. Open Quarterfinal Federer 6-7, 4-6, 6-7<\/p>\n

The previous “Facing Federer<\/em>” excerpt was with Dmitry Tursunov.<\/a><\/p>\n

You can purchase the whole book at Amazon:<\/p>\n