US OPEN

September 1, 2000

Venus Williams

THE MODERATOR: Questions for Venus.

VENUS WILLIAMS: Yeah, I was pulling down too quickly. I think the main problem was that I wasn't seeing like how I wanted to hit it clearly in my mind so it was not translating, how I'm hitting the ball. So I couldn't stop hitting the net. No matter how hard I tried, at one point there, I couldn't stop hitting serves in the net. So...

VENUS WILLIAMS: Well, by the time the second set rolled around, I think it was pretty much at an end or after those two double-faults in the tiebreak. I got over with it.

VENUS WILLIAMS: I mean I don't think it was a wake-up call at all. She did play well to get up 3-Love, it's not like I gave it to her. She hit some nice shots, she had nice strategy. You expect people to come out and play well, especially in a Grand Slam. I have a lot of points -- she has a lot of points to gain if she defeats me. Unfortunately for her it didn't happen tonight.

VENUS WILLIAMS: Sure, I think that's it. There's a lot of points there where I could have lost where I managed to come through, a lot of balls that I moved up to. Whereas in the past, even a lot of other players would not have went forward just to attack. So I think that helped me out a lot on my side.

VENUS WILLIAMS: I thought the points would be quicker and more effective. Whenever she was on a run, she hit some hard balls. The only time she generated power was when I gave her power. Other than that, she was hitting topspin balls. I felt like I wasn't going to feed her too much.

VENUS WILLIAMS: No. I think the last match I served quite well, but today I just -- I think one of the main reasons I wasn't getting a lot of first serves in is that puts a lot of pressure on your second serve. Especially today, she was returning very well, that makes you think more. Also, I was thinking about it much too much. Some of the serves when I wasn't thinking about it, I was thinking about something totally different, suddenly you hit a great second serve. So I have to stop thinking too much.

VENUS WILLIAMS: Well... I was pretty good before that.

VENUS WILLIAMS: But I guess now I've been winning quite a few. I guess I have the longest streak this year, these days, after this match. That's nice. I think it's gonna be pretty hard to break that this year for anybody. But as far as confidence, I feel like that in the big points, in the big situations, I'm at an advantage. Like I'm not gonna back down or make mistakes for no reason at all, as I might have done in the past.

VENUS WILLIAMS: No, I mean in order to win a Grand Slam, a lot of things have to start before that. So it's not like all of a sudden I won Wimbledon. I started working hard before. And now it's mine, I suppose. But it's just a matter of stepping up at the right time. Willing to step up.

VENUS WILLIAMS: I've seen her play before against Monica and I saw her do the same exact thing so today I was ready. But she played very well, was mixing up her shots. There was nothing I could do about it at that time. But I was -- started reading where she was hitting, and just a few shots that she likes more than others. So I'm a smart player; I'm watching what's happening.

VENUS WILLIAMS: That's the first thing I said when I walked out on the court when I was in warm-up. Just to make sure I love competing, I'm enjoying the competition. If so, then you're playing a little better, she's gonna hit this shot on me, I'm gonna hit this shot on her. So on and so forth.

VENUS WILLIAMS: Sure seems that way. But one match at a time. Who do I play next? No one knows. I think it was Coetzer and Serna. I'll play Serna. I prefer to play a higher-ranked player but you can't pick the draw.

VENUS WILLIAMS: Pardon me?

VENUS WILLIAMS: You know, I go to Hotmail, CNNSI, Yahoo, I used to go to Artnet.com. I don't go very much anymore because the site stopped loading correctly. But I'm not very big with the Internet. As far as, sure, using it, but I don't look around a lot.

VENUS WILLIAMS: Dolls?

VENUS WILLIAMS: Yeah.

VENUS WILLIAMS: Yeah, yeah. That's a possibility.

VENUS WILLIAMS: Yeah, sure. I felt a little bit tight because I was thinking about what I'm gonna do to turn this around, and also I think the only main reason I felt tight is because my first two matches, even last week, my balls have been flying long. So now I'm trying to stay low so they won't fly. But today I saw that they weren't flying so I was feeling a lot better. I was able to hit out a lot more.

VENUS WILLIAMS: It's like something I have to do before I play or else --.

VENUS WILLIAMS: Hmm? I have to do it.