MEDIBANK INTERNATIONAL

January 14, 2006

Igor Andreev

IGOR ANDREEV: What happened, well, actually nothing. I just -- I think I was doing everything right, right way. But, you know, like first point was he return -- he made a winner. Return to the line, first serve. It's like little strange, no. But he played very well this moment, you know, and like just played really well. Like I couldn't do nothing really. I think I was doing everything right, but sometimes even when you are doing right things it's not working. Well, just well played for him.

IGOR ANDREEV: Well, I mean, he's playing well first of all. Grand Slam is not only like if you are playing well you gonna win; you have to be very strong mentally, physically, you know, because it's five sets so it's little bit different game. Well, but I think he plays really well (lower?) matches. He plays well in Grand Slams as he showed in US Open, last US Open. He is great player. And I think if he can recover well, you know, like recharge his energy for this time that he will have before Australian, he can do really well there.

IGOR ANDREEV: Two on clay, and third indoor.

IGOR ANDREEV: Well, I mean, little bit of experience, little bit of technic. I mean, before I couldn't move really well on the hard court. I just couldn't get right distance before, like before hitting the ball, so I hit lot of like with the frame. Now I think my footwork is much better so I can control ball much better and I can take my forehand so I can play more aggressive. My return is getting better, you know, especially on hard court because on clay you have more time so you put more returns in. But here the service is much faster, so it's much difficult to return the serve. But I'm thinking I improved very much on this, and now I can, you know -- like the other guy don't win his serve very easy like he did before.

IGOR ANDREEV: Yeah, well, was really great week. I'm really happy now to be in the final especially my preparation before the season, I couldn't maybe, you know, work lot of physic because I have some -- I have knee surgery. Like first two weeks were just getting into the practice, you know, just to see little bit how it's gonna respond, the knee. And then, well, last two weeks I tried to like run little bit more, you know, work more on the physic. So here I think was perfect because like the work that I didn't do in the preparation, I done it here, you know, playing the long matches. So it's gonna really help me a lot. And I think, well, now I feel little tired, but I think for future, for next tournament, it's great work and I'm feeling really well now.

IGOR ANDREEV: Well, no. Well, preparation I do in Valencia in Spain, so it's not much heat as here but it's still practice in outdoor. Like normally when we did the preseason, we try to run a lot, you know, work a lot on the resistance. And just, you know, here you have to sometimes just forget about it, the heat, and fight, you know. Like even if you are not maybe hundred percent ready, sometimes with the heat the problem is that your head is like doesn't work anymore. So you keep fighting so you can do well.