THE LIPTON CHAMPIONSHIPS

March 20, 1995

Marianne Werdel Witmeyer

Q. The best day of your career, I suppose?

M. WERDEL WITMEYER: Yeah. You don't beat the No. 1 player very often, so I guess it definitely would be.

Q. How does it feel, I mean, what are you feeling now?

W. WERDEL WITMEYER: A little bit -- I mean, I am definitely incredibly excited. It is a great feeling to go out and play well and do all the things you have been working on. I think I would have rather have not won matchpoint on a let cord, but you take them anyway you can get them.

Q. What is Ron going to say when you tell him?

M. WERDEL WITMEYER: I don't know. He will probably hear it on the message machine before he hears it on TV, before I have a chance to talk to him. Because he has a game this afternoon, so he is on a baseball field in the Phoenix area; I am not sure where.

Q. Does he normally get excited after a big win?

M. WERDEL WITMEYER: Yeah, very excited. He sat through enough of the tough ones. He gets very nervous watching them. So it is easier for him farther away.

Q. Did you expect to come back in the second set?

M. WERDEL WITMEYER: Come back?

Q. Come back by Arantxa --

M. WERDEL WITMEYER: I was ahead most of the second set. So I don't know -- you mean, when I was down 5-4? Yeah. I mean, you always know you are not going to be able to do it if you don't think you can do it. I just felt like if I concentrated well, you know, that I could definitely win the game.

Q. What seem to be the reason for a good year; anything that you can pinpoint that is the difference? You have been around for a while.

M. WERDEL WITMEYER: I worked a lot harder than I had last year. I would say from the spring and summer onward, I spent a lot more hours on the court. I worked on my conditioning a lot, and worked on coming to the net more. I started playing a lot better last summer. I would play well for a match or two and I just wasn't able to string it together. Then last fall was when it really started to click and I started to play a lot better. So I ended the year on a good note and just spent all of December working hard and getting ready for the start of the year.

Q. Did you go out today just thinking I am just going to hit the ball as hard as I can; as accurately as I can and use that as a game plan?

M. WERDEL WITMEYER: Yeah, my game plan was to use my pace and to try and keep the ball as deep as I could because if I kept the ball deep then she wouldn't be able to kind of yank me around the court with all of her different spins, so I felt, you know, if I kept the ball hard, deep, that with all of her top spin and with the wind that I was going to get a short ball eventually that I can do something with.

Q. You took a number of swinging 3/4 volleys up here. Was that because of the wind making it difficult to overhead?

M. WERDEL WITMEYER: The lobs were pretty high, no, so that makes it pretty difficult to make an overhead. You generally don't hit an overhead when you are coming from the baseline. It is a tough shot to move forward as the balls moving backwards to hit an overhead.

Q. Did you feel particularly aggressive on her second serve; it seemed like she had maybe even little bit less than normal because she was hesitant because of the wind?

M. WERDEL WITMEYER: Yeah, it seemed like she was having problems with her second serve; serving with the wind keeping it in, I felt like I could have been a little bit more aggressive than what I was a couple of times I just-- I let the spin get up to high and when it got high to my backhand, there wasn't really as much that I could do. But I didn't make too many second serve return errors, so I was happy about that and I was still going for shots.

Q. You had a really wonderful junior career. I wonder whether you are just now finding the professional game that you thought you would have after you turned pro?

M. WERDEL WITMEYER: Yeah, I mean, I definitely haven't done as well as I thought I was going to do or as I was expected to do after my junior career, but it, you know, it is a difficult transition to make and, you know, just took me a little bit longer, I guess.

Q. It is odd when you hear people talking about players being finished at the age of 21 or 22. You are a little bit resurrected a little bit later in life?

M. WERDEL WITMEYER: Yeah, I mean, I guess if you look at the average age, I am definitely over the hill, but don't feel like it. You know, I have had my share of injury problems and, you know, this is the healthiest I have been, the fittest I have been and I am enjoying it more than I have.

Q. What made you work harder last year, just you decided you were ready to do that or some outside influence?

M. WERDEL WITMEYER: Yeah, a little bit outside influence. I mean, I think as you get older and I am married, you start thinking about what you are going to do after tennis; you start thinking about having children and you just get to the point I guess where it is now or never, and, you know, I just -- before I stopped, I wanted to make sure that I knew that I had given it everything that I could give.

Q. Can you remind us of something more about your injuries that you just mentioned?

M. WERDEL WITMEYER: Yeah, the second year I played I had an injury in my upper back and in my neck. Couple of years later I had a lower back injury and I have had some problems with my feet in the arches of my feet, so -- and actually the back injuries helped me in the long run more than they hurt me because I learned that the stronger your legs are; the better in shape you are in, the less injuries you will have and the less back injuries you will have so...

Q. The ball on that matchpoint, sometimes a player can see the ball to almost teetering on the net before it decides which side it is going to drop on. Did it teeter? It looked --

M. WERDEL WITMEYER: It looked like it was going to drop over, but then at the last second I realized I was against the wind so I wasn't sure if it was going to, but luckily it did.

Q. It finally did plop on the other side?

M. WERDEL WITMEYER: Relief. You know, it is a tough way to win a match. You are very excited, but yet you feel kind of lucky on the last point, but, you know, there wasn't -- it wasn't luck that got me to that point, so I have to still feel like I earned it.

Q. It seemed like it hung there.

M. WERDEL WITMEYER: Yeah, I think because I had hit the ball pretty hard so there was a lot of pace on it, and, you know, it probably would have probably gone back further, but because of the wind, it just kind of stopped.

Q. What club does your husband play for?

M. WERDEL WITMEYER: Oakland A's.

Q. What is he hitting right now?

M. WERDEL WITMEYER: Tell you the truth, I don't know. Hasn't been going that great for him, though.

Q. Higher than Michael Jordan?

M. WERDEL WITMEYER: Hopefully.

Q. What is his name?

M. WERDEL WITMEYER: Ron Witmeyer. Hopefully this will bring some good luck into the family.

Q. Opening of the second set there was an overrule. When did you put that out of your mind?

M. WERDEL WITMEYER: As soon as the point was over. No, I mean, umpiring out there was fantastic, I mean, some of the other tournaments that we play, you know, you don't have as experienced umpires and out there, it is, you know, it is a relief to go out and play and to know that you have some of the best umpires on the court and you don't have to worry about that. You just worry about playing. I thought they did a great job.

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