Danai Udomchoke: Special feeling playing for Thailand
Thailand’s most successful Davis Cup player – Danai Udomchoke takes charge of his nation in the Davis Cup for the first time and he spoke about his experiences as a player.
Speaking about his very first match for Thailand, he said, “It was very tough – there was a lot of pressure there,” said Udomchoke.
“I remember my first set, I couldn’t really move at all and we lost 6-1. After that my partner, who had a lot of Davis Cup experience, he tried to bring me into the game again, and that’s why we won that match. It was good to play a doubles match first in Davis Cup,” he added. “In singles, I’m not sure I would have come back!”
But he got used to the pressure and expectations. “Every time I played with the Thai flag on my chest, it was a special feeling,” he said. “Everybody expects you to win for your country – it pushes you to fight more.”
“Because I’ve played a lot and I know how the pressure is, I try to make my players stay on their game. Otherwise you think about a lot of things, and not about your game. They might think too much about winning and try to finish points too early or make mistakes. This is what I try to tell them – stay calm, trust your game, relax.”
Speaking about the tie against Philippines, he assessed, “With the rankings, it looks like we have the advantage, but in sport you never know what’s going to happen. We have to think that we’re going to try our best, give everything we have and produce the type of performance that we’ve trained for over the past two or three months. We cannot just say we are going to win every match – we have to do it.”
from Tennis World USA http://bit.ly/2Z4uXad
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