U.S. OPEN

September 8, 1992

MaliVai Washington

MaliVAI WASHINGTON: Probably just his consistent play. I think the last half of the fourth set and throughout the fifth, he was real consistent. He wasn't making a whole lot of errors, and I think that is the thing to do when you get to those fifth sets. You just got to be real consistent and, you know, make the other guy play, make him feel the pressure. I think that is what he was able to do tonight.

Q. Were you surprised that he came to the net as much as he did?

MaliVAI WASHINGTON: I mean, I didn't think he came to the net a whole lot, tell you the truth. I mean, he played like I thought he was going to play.

Q. Seemed like in the third, fourth set, he started to hit the ball higher, maybe changing the pace a little bit. Do you think that had any effect on the match?

MaliVAI WASHINGTON: Well, I think at that point, he had just lost the third set, and I think he wanted to kind of throw in a change-up, and obviously it worked. Whatever he was doing, the first set, wasn't working in the second and third. You know, he just started changing the pace of the ball; changing the height of the ball, hoping, you know, it would affect me somehow, get me out of my rhythm. I thought -- I thought I handled it pretty well. He just was able to counter, you know, when I attacked. I thought that that is what he did best in the last set.

Q. How many times did he hit shots that you didn't see how in the world he could have hit?

MaliVAI WASHINGTON: He came up with a lot of good shots, shots from where he was on the dead run, and you know, hit shots past me that were on the line or close, you know, to the line. At that point, you know, you just got to say too good, yeah, maybe I could have hit a better approach or little harder or little deeper, though they were good approaches, and he just came up with better shots, so I don't know, I guess that is why I am not, you know, real upset about the results. I thought I did what I wanted to do. He just came up with better shots when he had to.

Q. Were you disappointed that this match wasn't played in the stadium tonight?

MaliVAI WASHINGTON: It is always nice to play in the stadium. It's a bigger court, bigger crowd, everything. It would have been nice to play it in there. We both agreed you know, because what time is it now? I mean if we--

Q. 12:00.

MaliVAI WASHINGTON: -- Had gone according to plan, we would have been going on as soon as this match is over so obviously it was good to go out to the grandstand.

Q. Mal, you spoke of his fifth set consistency. You have had some difficulty in fifth sets, the record and all that which you heard before. Is there anything that you could work on to improve your consistency at that point in a match; do you think?

MaliVAI WASHINGTON: Improve my consistency?

Q. When you are deep in a match, is there anything that you can do to prepare yourself for that situation or do you have to wait until you are in it?

MaliVAI WASHINGTON: I don't know. I mean, when I get to the fifth set, I do what I have been doing, you know. I don't think I play poorly in fifth sets. I don't know, maybe I should grab a gun and shoot the guy, or something and maybe I will win the fifth set, but you know, the guy -- I don't think it's a matter of me just, you know, being way up and just losing it because the thing gets tight. Some of the five setters I have lost, the guy just played better. I don't know, you can't do too much about that.

Q. Did you think -- you had him frustrated or about to in the fourth set, maybe not -- were you surprised that he had kind of a reserve tank in the fourth set to come on?

MaliVAI WASHINGTON: I didn't think he was tired. I didn't expect him to run out of gas at all. I think at this level, I mean, you got to expect guys to go four, five hours, so I wasn't banking on him running out of gas. In that fourth set, I was trying to close it out. I think one of the turning points was when, I don't know, might have been the third game or the second game, something like that, of the fourth set, where I had a breakpoint to go up a break. I can't remember exactly. I just missed the return. Then I remember I missed the return at deuce and then, at that point, it just seemed that that was the little boost he needed, came back from a breakpoint or whatever, and was able to hold me off throughout the rest of the match.

Q. When it got into the fifth set, was it all instinctive and reactive on your part or were you thinking "I have got to do something" and thinking about what you had to do to win the fifth set?

MaliVAI WASHINGTON: I wanted to do the same thing I had been doing because like -- I thought that was pretty successful. Like I was saying before, he just continued to come up with good shots. I mean, it was that simple. I mean, you saw some of the passing shots he was hitting, you know. It is his good fortune that he can hit those, you know; my bad, that I couldn't reach them.

Q. Do you look at you and Michael as pretty similar players and, if so, is that one reason that everybody was having trouble holding serve?

MaliVAI WASHINGTON: I mean, I suppose we are -- I don't know, we are kind of similar, I suppose. Tonight, we were kind of similar. I don't mean either one of us were serving a lot of bombs. Actually, he probably had more aces than I did.

Q. Thank you.

MaliVAI WASHINGTON: Great.

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