COMPAQ GRAND SLAM CUP

December 8, 1993

Michael Stich

MICHAEL STICH: No clue. I just went out there today and really enjoyed playing out there, and I played pretty well. I mean, I returned pretty well. Served okay on this surface; it is so fast, and I knew if I could concentrate on my serve a bit, and get a lot of first serves in and it makes life easier. Then I started returning pretty well, and played a smart game.

MICHAEL STICH: I didn't even think about motivation. I just thought about coming here and really enjoying the first match, the only one, and the last one, or the first one; it doesn't matter. Just get out there and enjoy it and have fun.

MICHAEL STICH: No. Yesterday, I hit one hour fifteen, I think, and this morning, 20 minutes, and normally it is very difficult, but, I mean, I got the right timing right from the beginning and it felt pretty easy, but you have to say that Mal didn't play a great match. He missed a lot of balls and made life easy for me, too.

MICHAEL STICH: Yeah. I saw a bit of the match yesterday, yeah, but not the whole match; but the key moments, like the beginning of the first and the end of the second set. Yeah.

MICHAEL STICH: I really didn't care, I must say. For him, it would have been good to win - no question about it- to get some confidence, but I didn't think about him. I mean, I thought about myself playing my first round and trying to win.

MICHAEL STICH: No, I don't feel any pressure at all. It is just -- I don't think that anybody is expecting of me to win this tournament, especially after the last two events, and I think that is good. I think I showed that I am a good tennis player; I played two great tournaments in Germany, and now every match I win is like a Christmas present to myself. That is what I am trying to do, to give me as many presents as I can.

MICHAEL STICH: After this one, it is two weeks, holiday, Christmas, and then I start with Qatar, and after Qatar I go down to Melbourne.

MICHAEL STICH: Yep.

MICHAEL STICH: There was a lot of changes yesterday to play on this surface, and I simply decided I wanted to keep the ball in the game, and it seemed to work today. THE INTERPRETER: When asked whether you were going to play Davis Cup last year Boris said there will have to be talks between 3 of them or 6 guys, and Michael said he never heard about it. And Dutch newspaper wrote this morning, anyway, talk with four eyes; he was blind anyway. Mike announced since he didn't hear about this, he didn't want to comment on it.

MICHAEL STICH: Of course I would have appreciated one more week off before coming to Munich, but -- and then I had plans, sort of active recovery before coming. But anyway, I am going to try to win each match, and it worked perfectly so far, but we will see the remainder of this week. Yes.

MICHAEL STICH: I first considered only two days that I had to -- I have to enjoy my Davis Cup more than remembering last year. I played very good tennis last year here; it was the beginning of an excellent year of 1993. At this point in time I think I have got to consider next year and not remember last year.

MICHAEL STICH: Well, I suggest you ask the people who participated in this polls and then representative polls are never as representative as people might think because they would never ask 50 million people. If you are lucky, they ask the right thousand people and if you are not, they ask the wrong 1,000 people. Of course, it is a nice feeling and especially being elected athlete of the year is really something I suppose is due to the sports success and not other things, but look at Boris, as soon as there is no success in sports anymore, the media starts writing down and killing him.

MICHAEL STICH: I did so four years ago, again I did three and again I did two years ago.