This victory was for Roger Federer already 10th in the season and 43rd in his professional career. At the end of the final match, in which the first tennis player of the world, according to tradition, did not give a single chance to Chile's rival Fernando Gonzalez - 7: 5, 6: 1, 6: 0, the winner answered questions from journalists.
- Victories in the semi-finals and finals here in Madrid were extremely easy for you. You do not care who and with what account to beat?
- You probably mean two sets that I won against Nalbandyan and Gonzalez with a score of 6: 0? I don’t know how it happened, honestly. I did not make any special efforts, I just played as always. Perhaps next time the guys need to be more focused.
- Do you already recognize yourself as the best tennis player in the history of this game?
- Let us confine ourselves to the fact that I am the best tennis player in the world at the moment. And it seems too early to touch the story so far. To become the best in history, I must first break the records of all the great predecessors. And only then will it be possible to consider my candidacy. This is still a long way off. But I agree with the fact that I am on the right track.
- Each month, your superiority over other tennis players is becoming more and more overwhelming. But you won everything already ... How difficult is it to find a new challenge for yourself each time?
- As for the new challenges, I will answer in a trite way: I like to play tennis and especially win. And about the ease of my victories ... The ideal still does not exist. Two years ago, everyone said that my tennis is almost perfect. But I knew that it wasn’t. Feeding, technical variety of the game, endurance - I worked on all this a lot in the last two years, and therefore the result is visible. And now they say to me again: “Roger, you are the best, you are the ideal” ... And I still have a lot of minuses. Do not believe? We will return to this conversation in a couple of years, and you yourself will understand everything.
- In Madrid, the injured ankle of your right foot again bothered you. It does not hurt to successfully end the season?
- I play with this injury almost all year. She escalated to a tournament in Toronto, at the US Open and now. Each time I had to put a lot of effort to continue the tournaments, but, as you can see, they were not in vain, and the pain slowly passed.
- Which of the following two tournaments is more interesting for you - in your native Basel or Masters in Paris?
- Of course, the tournament in Basel will be more rich in emotions. It was at this tournament that I felt what professional tennis was when I was still playing as a big boy.
- Celebrating the victory in Madrid, you got a cork from champagne in the eye. Is everything okay with him?
- Yes, Fernando opens champagne much more accurately than he hits the ball. Just kidding. In fact, at the first moment I was a little scared, because I never got a cork from champagne in the eye. I got it with a ball, but not with a cork. And, when it flew off and fell to the floor, I even thought that it was my eye that flew out and began to look for it on the floor ... In short, as you see and as I see, everything ended well. It will be necessary to devote a couple of hours to training on opening champagne. The next time, Gonzalez will not be greeted.
Translation by Andrey IVANTSOV