TMS - STUTTGART

October 19, 2001

Pete Sampras

MODERATOR: Questions for Pete.

PETE SAMPRAS: I felt fine. Just everything was about my arm. I had the dead arm today. You know, it was pretty sore all week. I served pretty hard last night late. Today, it wasn't that fun. Not to take anything away from Max, he really played well. You know, when you can't serve, it definitely takes a little bit out of my game. But he played great. He really played the bigger points a little better than I did, returned well. Definitely just played a little bit better than I did.

PETE SAMPRAS: No, not the ball. Just I think it's a combination of the ball and my racquet. You know, I string my racquets very tight, about 75 pounds, with gut. You know, I serve pretty hard most of the time. It's just a fatigue. Having taken a couple weeks after The Open, you get back into serving here. Once I got here, it was progressively not getting better. I got through it yesterday, and today I kind of just was dead. It's not that much fun to kind of go out and, you know, have that feeling. But it is, you know, something I've had over my career, this problem. Especially this time of year with the balls and everything out there, the way I string my racquets, it doesn't help.

PETE SAMPRAS: It does make it worse. But I've been through weeks here in Europe that I've played a lot, and it doesn't seem to get better. You know, you can take the antiinflammatories, and nothing seems to be knocking it out. But, sure, when you take that time off, you don't serve for two, three weeks, you go out and serve hard, it's definitely giving me some questions. I think I might try to talk to a pitching coach, you know, to see how those guys do it. It progressively comes around and bites me every now and again, especially this time of year.

PETE SAMPRAS: Very tough to pass. I felt I was forced into some bad errors because he's got that long reach. You know, he's a great mover up there. For a guy that big, he really covers the net well, very tough to pass out there.

PETE SAMPRAS: I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I'm going to think about it tonight, make a decision on what the best thing to do is at this point.

PETE SAMPRAS: Yeah.

PETE SAMPRAS: (Nodding head.)

PETE SAMPRAS: I wouldn't come back.