US OPEN

August 31, 2004

Wayne Arthurs

WAYNE ARTHURS: Not really, no (laughter). Pretty much didn't serve well enough for someone who is going to return at me like that. Played one bad game the first set. Probably could have been two sets to love down easily. Love-40, fought back, played a pretty good tiebreaker, I thought. Then I wasn't happy with the call early on in the third set when he broke my serve the first time. Norm Chryst overruled a very tight call, which I think is probably not...

WAYNE ARTHURS: He hit a good return. I hit a backhand volley cross-court deep into the corner. It makes no mark on the court. Hit some line. Norm overruled it. First time he's spoken up the whole match. Pretty frustrating. My serve went down a little bit at that stage. My first serve percentage I think was I reckon in the high 30s maybe max. Can't be serving like that against a guy who is returning that well. One bad game again in the fourth set. Had a couple of chances there to get back into it in the fourth, just didn't take them. I didn't play the big points I think well enough today. He took his opportunities when they came.

WAYNE ARTHURS: Where are you picking up that Mark is not going to be there?

WAYNE ARTHURS: I think if Mark's in the team, I'm going to be playing doubles. If Mark's not in the team, then I'm the second pick. It's just the way it is with Australian tennis at the moment. We've only got four guys close to the top hundred, three guys in the top hundred, and one guy, Todd Reid, just outside the top hundred. If Mark is in the squad, he's playing singles. If Mark's not in the squad, I'm the next pick. It's pretty clear-cut as that.

WAYNE ARTHURS: Of course, I still have an ambition, yeah. When Mark's on the team and Lleyton's fit, I'm the third person.

WAYNE ARTHURS: Yeah. As long as my ranking is where it is, I'm able to play at this level week in, week out, I'm going to be playing.

WAYNE ARTHURS: No reason to stop at the moment.

WAYNE ARTHURS: Sometimes I don't, no, to be honest. There's times when I don't want to be out there. I've just got to look at my schedule a little bit harder than I used to. I used to be out there 33, 34 weeks a year. Just can't do that any more. That's just too many.

WAYNE ARTHURS: Mental. I think I'm physically in pretty good shape still. Probably better now than I was when I was 25. Probably just doing more work and that sort of stuff off the court. It's a mental battle more than anything.

WAYNE ARTHURS: It's not easy picking yourself up after losing every week. I'm not a guy who wins a lot of tournaments. I haven't actually won one singles tournament. To keep on getting better every week and lose every week, it's not easy mentally. You just got to I suppose look at the positive sides of things. I'm still playing Davis Cup. I played the Olympics this year. Still playing main draw of Grand Slams at 33. Look at the positive side and not take the negatives too badly. At least sometimes I do. I haven't done it in the past.

WAYNE ARTHURS: Thanks.

WAYNE ARTHURS: Not really the turning point. At that stage, I had just won the second set. To get a call like that to go down I think 15-40 on that point or Love-30, it's a huge point in the context of the whole match. I don't think it put me off. I mean, not saying anything against this guy, but he has done that three or four times in big matches again me before. He just seems to want to be part of the game, want to be part of the match. At some stage he just pipes up and that sort of thing happens. It's happened too many times with him.

WAYNE ARTHURS: I think he is, yeah. He can't just sit there and call scores. Sometimes he just wants to be part of it.

WAYNE ARTHURS: No. I think his personality needs to be in there doing something.

WAYNE ARTHURS: I don't know whether you can, no. He's an accredited umpire. They seem to respect him in the establishment. We can only put or bid into whoever, see what they do about it.

WAYNE ARTHURS: Larkham, my coach in the past, I've had matches him, and he's asked not to have Norm on my matches ever again, and it still hasn't happened.

WAYNE ARTHURS: I've accepted it. I've accepted also that something like that is going to happen.

WAYNE ARTHURS: Sometimes you want to be nowhere near a court. I've been out here 15 years now. Sometimes it sort of gets on top of you. You don't want to be on the tennis court. There are times where maybe you have to go take three or four weeks off, come back and reevaluate things. In the end of the day, it's my job. If I really, really don't want to do it, nobody's keeping me out here. I can walk away and feel pretty satisfied with the last seven years of my career. It's been pretty good.

WAYNE ARTHURS: Be an Aussie Rules footballer. Is it a little bit late for that (laughter)? No.

WAYNE ARTHURS: I got about 14 years till the seniors golf tour. I really haven't thought about that really seriously. That's probably the day I'm retiring that I'm thinking about what I'm doing after I'm finished.

WAYNE ARTHURS: No. I'm playing doubles still. Start tomorrow probably. Depending on how that goes, how long I stay around. Otherwise I'm back to Melbourne as soon as possible.

WAYNE ARTHURS: Back to Melbourne.

WAYNE ARTHURS: We go back and play in Melbourne, then go to Perth. Good time to be back in Melbourne, I think, back in Australia, watching the AFL finals.