Sam Querrey says he gained confidence after upsetting Novak Djokovic

WASHINGTON — After Sam Querrey downed No. 1 Novak Djokovic in the third round of Wimbledon and advanced to his first career major quarterfinal, he needed a break.

He arrived back in his native California on July 7, and rather than jetting off to another tournament in Rhode Island a few days later, Querrey took a week to bask in the excitement of his Wimbledon upset and recover for the rest of his summer schedule.

That slate starts this week at the Citi Open at Rock Creek Park Tennis Center, where Querrey spoke in a pre-tournament news conference Monday afternoon about his growing confidence.

“I’m hoping to just kind of continue off that great week, and I guess time will tell,” Querrey said. “We’ll see what happens, but I’m still feeling great and feeling confident and ready to go for this week.”

If Querrey had tried to play in Newport, R.I., for the Hall of Fame Tennis Championships last week, the No. 29-ranked player felt he would’ve wasted his energy as he expects to play in a tournament every week for the rest of the summer.

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Querrey instead made an appearance on Good Morning America. He threw out the first pitch at a Los Angeles Dodgers game. He did a photo shoot with GQ.

“That’s usually not my normal week,” he said to laughter from reporters. “I got to do a lot of cool things.”

Now he’s preparing to start the Citi Open. As he handed Djokovic his first Grand Slam loss since last year’s French Open final, Querrey focused on making his serves powerful and being aggressive with his forehand moves.

“I was feeling good and kind of thought to myself, ‘Hey, I’m not going to win, but this is going to be close if I keep playing like this,’” Querrey said of his mindset through the Wimbledon match that lasted two days because of weather delays.

He secured the upset before falling two matches later to Milos Raonic, but Querrey became the first American man to reach a major quarterfinal since John Isner and Andy Roddick made it that far in the 2011 U.S. Open.

Despite his success, Querrey said his goals for the season haven’t changed. He admitted, however, he wants to crack the ATP Top 20.

“I just kind of want to play well," Querrey said. “The ranking is going to be what it’s going to be.”

But that’s where Querrey’s projections end. He hasn’t thought about other top players he wants to knock off in pursuit of advancing further in future tournaments. Instead, he wants to use his Wimbledon run as momentum in this summer’s upcoming schedule.

“It was an incredible 10 days for me, something I’ll always remember,” Querrey said. “When I got home, I tried to kind of put it behind me and move on.”