- Michael, how can you evaluate your current successes? And, more specifically, a speech at the past Wimbledon?
- As for the tournament in England, I am pleased with the level of my game, but not with the result, which I already consider a step forward. But in general, the year is not going as it would be desirable, and the task is simple - find your game. I am now doing everything in order to return to the previous level.
- What do you call your game?
- That game, which I can play, but which - for various reasons - so far does not work.
- And more specifically?
- Specifically, these are the results. And you can show a good game, but fly into the very first round on the same Federer and lose. And you can reach the semifinals, but with a very mediocre game. True, as a rule, the quality of the game and the result are interconnected, but today, at this particular moment, I am interested in the result.
- To the detriment of the beauty of the game?
- I can play beautifully, but then the rating will definitely be worse than now ( laughs ).
- What is the general schedule of the South tennis player?
- Eleven months. Until the first week of November. Nine required tournaments in which you, if you get on the grid, must play, and the rest you already choose according to your desire, according to the degree of readiness. Tennis in this sense is an ideal sport. Wanted - play, no - starred. You can do whatever your left leg wants. True, when you start listening to your left leg, tennis ends.
- Is there anything in modern tennis that you would like to change?
- I would not want anything. Let everything remain as it is. Of course, I understand that the same television with its money and broadcast rights dictates its own laws. The viewer expects to spend two hours on a tennis match and then go about his business, and the match will suddenly begin later, and lasts longer. Next time the same spectator will go to hockey. With its three periods of 20 minutes each. So that he does not go anywhere, such talk about tennis regulations periodically occurs. To set, for example, lasted a certain time. Or to make a game in tournaments not according to the Olympic, but according to a round-robin system. They also talk a lot about it, and they say that it will raise interest in tennis, and ultimately bring more money. But for me, let everything remain as it is. Even if it becomes less money.
- And besides tennis, are you still playing for money?
- Not. One day after the end of one of the tournaments in the casino there was a party, we were given 25 euros each, I immediately lost them calmly and calmed down.
- Not interested?
- Absolutely. It turned out that I was completely indifferent to this.
- What about other sports? Not in the sense - for money, but in the sense - just play? Or take a look?
- Football. I love to play myself, and as a fan I watch when I have time, with pleasure.
- And who are you rooting for?
- For CSKA. Since childhood. It’s not so, of course, that it would be impossible to pull one’s ears off the TV, but, once again, if I have time, I look with pleasure.
“ And who do you like?”
- Jo. The speed of decision making is just crazy. The ball received, turned, hit - a goal. A person thinks much faster than our defenders.
- What about basketball? This year CSKA basketball won everything you can ...
- I went to several Euroleague matches, to the final of CSKA - Dynamo last year ...
- Okay, we were distracted. Let's get back to tennis.
- I will not be original. Tennis for me today is a job, a game, and entertainment. Together. It is in that order.
- But does it happen that any of these components becomes more important than others?
“They are all interconnected, and one cannot exist without the other.” I understand that this is my work, but, on the other hand, I am not obliged to get up every morning and go to this work. In general, I can leave her and find another, where they will pay even more. But I get up and set off because I like it.
- And how long have you been holding a racket in your hands?
- Since three years.
- That is, it turns out ...
- 21 years of experience. Yes, I'm almost a pensioner, did you want to hear that? ( Laughs. ) Laugh with laughter, but sport is a profession that comes early. After school, someone determines who he will be and what he will do. And in tennis, people begin to live from 7-8 years. Of course, many leave, but many remain. This is their life. Moreover, it is not necessary to be a professional tennis player. Someone becomes a coach, someone is a sparring partner.
- And how old can you play?
- Someone like. Someone plays well at 35, but the practice has developed such that the optimal average age is thirty. Although the same Navratilova is fifty, but she still plays. True, in pairs. It would seem that what she lacks? But he plays, and not bad. Agassi - thirty-six, and also plays. And also not bad.
- Here we are slowly and moved on to the pension topic. You have to play ... how much?
- I think not so little. I do not want to make a guess, but I think that not so little.
“ And yet, what are your plans?” Or have you not built them yet?
- I want to stay in tennis. In another, of course, quality, but in tennis. There is an idea to open a tennis academy in Russia and work on the result already with the younger generation.
- Have you already experimented in the coaching field?
- Not yet. No time. And while it's not mine. I can, of course, suggest something, explain something, but now it can only be a one-time character.
- But in principle - do you like to watch children play?
- When there is time, then yes.
- Can you determine whether the child will be good or not?
- At first glance, I can only say no. But as for “yes,” this is a long process.
Valery WINGURT, "Newspaper"