EVERT CUP

March 10, 1999

Mary Pierce

Q. What can you do against somebody who is playing with that much confidence?

MARY PIERCE: Just play your game.

MARY PIERCE: My unforced errors, I think, made the difference today.

MARY PIERCE: I think she's playing some pretty good tennis. You know, she's definitely on a roll. She's confident. You know, there are always -- she's always confident no matter what anyway. I think she's definitely improved since the last time I played her, which is almost a year, two years ago, year and a half ago. She's getting better and better. She's powerful, powerful player. I'm just disappointed today that I didn't play as well as I could. I'm not saying I would have won or the outcome would have been any different, but I would have liked to have played a better match.

MARY PIERCE: Not really. If you start to do that, that's when the unforced errors come in. It's not a competition of who has more power, who can hit the ball harder. I think it's who plays smarter, who makes less errors, and really who takes charge of the point first, you know. If you give a short ball or easy ball, it's really hard to win the point after that.

MARY PIERCE: Same as the whole match, I guess. I didn't feel really like I was hitting the ball very solid. I was just miss-hitting a lot of my shots. You know, they were just off center and without pace and not really what I wanted to do with the ball. You know, I think she just kept playing the same.

MARY PIERCE: Yes, I think so.

MARY PIERCE: Well, a new No. 1 every other month or so, I don't know, because the way the point system is. Lindsay and Martina are pretty much close, they're pretty much a little bit farther than everybody else. It's going to be interesting at the end of the year to see who is in the Top 10, at least Top 5, who ends up No. 1.

MARY PIERCE: No, I wouldn't be surprised. But that means she'd have to be producing some pretty good tennis, because there are a lot of other girls playing some pretty good tennis, too.