Is there anything special that your friend or your family or your team told you?
No -Everybody was very proud of how I handled the situation: How I played tennis, yes, but also how I handled the situation after loss. The only thing I wanted to do after that was to go back to my parents’ house and stay there and surround myself with friends. How did I feel when I was first 13 years old when I left home for the first time [to train full-time for tennis]And I was searching again for such feelings.
Do I think it is right that at the time when you were 13 years old and you decided to leave the house to push the tennis, you were really playing only twice a week only?
In summer, yes -in the summer, I was playing only once a week, perhaps; There were weeks where I didn’t play at all, because I was skiing and then I was playing indoor football with my friends. I really never played tennis until I was originally 12 years old, but then I removed the ski and started playing more football and more tennis. But I had never had an entire week of practice – I had two or three sessions each week. I also never used to go to the gym, because I was always in nature.
This is amazing for me.
I used to live my childhood how I wanted, and it is also thanks to my parents who gave me the possibility of playing ski and tennis – and I come from a normal family. As I said earlier, we would never have thought in the situation we are in now. All this is very surprising, yet, for all of us.
Does getting into tennis mean relatively late that when you were too young, your childhood game dreams had nothing to do with tennis? Did you dream about scoring a game-winning goal in the World Cup-or by winning the downhill skiing gold in the kitzbell or something?
No – When I was small, my dream was always to become a formula 1 driver, but we never had money, and we directly understood that Formula 1 is so expensive, so we did not even try. It was also completely impossible to think. Later, when I started playing tennis, you could say that my dream was to win a pro tour or whatever, but it was not just realistic: it was just a dream, not a goal. I never said that my goal was to become number one in the world; Most likely, it can only be a dream. It was not realistic in my head.
