US OPEN

August 31, 2003

Sjeng Schalken

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

SJENG SCHALKEN: Yeah, I think you can put him there. But, yeah, I played all those guys with big serves. Yeah, took me longer to get used to his serve because he's so high, he hits the ball so high. And then after the bounce it comes up high, even he hits it flat. So I had troubles with that the first one and a half set. And, after a while, I could make him volley a little bit more. But he didn't miss any volleys, so I didn't know how to break him. But he has a very good serve, yes.

SJENG SCHALKEN: No, because he hit only one double-fault till that time. I thought, "Okay, let's go to the next set." That's what I thought. I was not thinking that I could win that point. Well, he basically gave it to me. I still had a little hope from that moment.

SJENG SCHALKEN: Yeah, I think that was one of the only points where I had my racquet behind the ball in the whole set. I'm lucky enough to have it at 8-all I think in the tiebreak. He didn't get many volleys in that set, so that was about his first volley that he had to hit. So it's tough on the big point to hit the first volley. I think that's why he missed it.

SJENG SCHALKEN: Try to get in a rhythm on my serve, and that I could play my own game and my service games. Yeah, in his games, just stay relaxed and let it all come over you, ace after ace. But that one at that little time where you can -- at a certain point where you can have a shot, then you have to be ready.

SJENG SCHALKEN: He doesn't have really good ground strokes compared to my ground strokes, so he got some unforced errors. And, no, but he leans on his serve. That's his game, his serve. So I think he's doing very good, because he won 15 matches in a row, winning two challengers and coming out of qualifying into the third round. That's 15 matches. So I think he's doing very well with this one weapon. So it must be a very consistent serve; otherwise, you cannot win 15 matches in a row. Well, at certain parts in the match I was lucky to be ahead 2-0 in sets.

SJENG SCHALKEN: Yes. I always expect because I cannot -- I'm not a player who can blow somebody off the court. So I always have to fight hard. I don't have a killer serve, so I always have to work hard for my points. I expect to have a fight with everybody and also with Ivo of course.

SJENG SCHALKEN: Actually, he hits his second serve as a first serve. Sometimes he hits a little bit of a kick serve. I was -- yeah, it jumps almost over me. I'm 6'3. Yeah, what can you do? I can slice it a little bit, but then he stands at the net and you cannot do anything. You are just basically hoping that he misses a volley.

SJENG SCHALKEN: I don't know. You have to ask him. I was just very happy that he missed it.

SJENG SCHALKEN: It's 50/50 all the time we play a tiebreak, huh? It fell to me three times. I had the little stronger nerves maybe and also little bit of luck.

SJENG SCHALKEN: Well, I think it's gonna be a really hard match, completely different than what I played today. Rainer and I play from the back. Well, he's red hot at the moment. He wins a lot of matches, even in the Masters Series. Last time we played, fourth round in Wimbledon, I beat him in three sets. But, well, I will expect, again, I think it's gonna be a tougher match. We both like the hard courts and it will be a physical match with a lot of running.