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Journalism of Courage
• Was it a planned move to play in Toronto or was it just that these were the only tournaments before the Olympics?
It’s definitely a planned move. We’ve been preparing for the Olympics for a while now, especially with the year that I had last year. The minute I got the okay from the doctors to come back to tennis, I knew that the Olympics was the pinnacle of my year in 2004. So, we did target Toronto. We targeted Cincinnati and at the same time the few Davis Cup matches that we played this year all were in preparation to the Olympics.
• The Toronto Masters is kind of special for you both, having triumphed here in 1997. Does it evoke sentiments now and then?
I think that’s definitely back in one’s memory bank, and one’s looking to try and emulate that feat that we had in ’97 and play to that same capability. The fact that we haven’t played together week in and week out on the tour makes our job that much tougher. But there is no reason why Mahesh and myself cannot win this week or next week in Cincinnati or come away with the gold medal. It’s a matter of tapping into the resources that we know that we have that within us and proving that on a daily level.
• Just two tournaments before the Olympics as warmups, don’t you feel you could have squeezed in more?
Well, unfortunately, the fact that we play with two different partners meant that we had responsibilities to our separate partners. After Wimbledon this is the first tournament that we have played together. These two being the events before the Olympics, we targeted them.
Also, the fact that the Olympics is on hard courts, and so are the two warmup tournaments in Toronto and in Cincinnati…
• Athens would be your fourth Olympic games. Are you looking at five or would you have quit by 2008?
Last year when I was pretty much told that I couldn’t ever play tennis again, it was obviously not an opportunity to keep to my word which I had given my father as a 12-year-old, of playing in four Olympics. So since I got the okay in December, I’ve basically been training for the whole year for that. Now that I’m on the threshold of keeping to my word as a son and as an athlete, and at the same time something that I felt that I was born for, it’s really a feat in itself.
On saying that, I have no idea when I’m going to retire. I still love the game of tennis. I think it’s a great vehicle. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a fantastic opportunity to broaden my horizons, travel the world, get to meet great people, and I’m very blessed to have a profession like this. So I will play until, you know, my legs can carry me. If I wake up 30 days in a row feeling like I can’t keep up with this, I will retire but I hope that I will make this fourth Olympics and maybe a fifth, who knows.
• Turning back the clock, how has competition changed?
It’s a lot fiercer. It’s a lot more athletic. The stakes being so great, hence, it’s very cutthroat, and at the same time it’s so much more professional. All these points being positives in the game of tennis and the fact that we compete not only as professionals in the Olympics, which is actually an amateurs’ event, I think is a God-given opportunity. The depth of tennis has become so great that it keeps all of us on our toes on a daily level.
