TMS - INDIAN WELLS

March 16, 2000

Alex Corretja

MIKI SINGH: Alex's first quarterfinal here at Indian Wells, and his fifth time playing here. He'll be going for his second semifinal of the year.

ALEX CORRETJA: Yeah, it was kind of difficult to start. As you know, I finished pretty late last night. It was a kind of different game. At the beginning, I didn't find myself pretty well on the court. He was playing pretty deep, with a lot of good slices, he was serving well, as well. It was difficult for me to find my rhythm. Once I find it, I believe I was much better than him. Maybe he was also tired from yesterday, you never know. It seems that once I step on the court with my game, I play really nice, nice shots.

ALEX CORRETJA: Yes, I agree with that, fortunately. As you know, it's been a while for me to be a hundred percent again. It was never easy for me last year. In this moment, I feel like I'm coming back. It's good because even if I didn't play well, I still am like 26 in the ranking, which means I'm not losing on the rankings, you know. I have the chance to come back again to see if I can reach other good tournaments. I'm happy. This is the first time I reached the quarters, as Miki said. It's nice to play well here.

ALEX CORRETJA: Many things. I've been already talking a lot about these things. Still I can say that after '98, which was my best year, as you know, everything unbelievable for me, I did a lot of things back in Spain. I didn't have much time to rest. I didn't have much time to enjoy my life. I get tired of everything, of tennis, of interviews, of going outside on the street because everybody was recognizing me. At the beginning, it was difficult to handle it. You got to get used to. I was not tired of them; I was tired of the situation. I wanted to rest and I never find the time. So that's why I need some time. Then once I just rest a little bit, I came back strongly. I've been practicing pretty hard in December. I came to Australia, it seems that I was playing okay. Somehow I just play so bad in The Open. It make me feel bad because I thought I was in a good way, and that loss, it didn't help, you know. But then I play again Davis Cup. I saw there was something wrong in Australia, that was all. Right now, since that day, I think I just lost a match against Costa last week, and I had a match point. It means probably I'm in a good way again.

ALEX CORRETJA: When you are physically exhausted and you are almost like running every year, just running every match, winning matches like I did in '98, you got to rest, and I didn't. My health, it was not too good. I was like tired the whole day. I didn't want to play tennis. I didn't want to do anything. I just wanted to lay on my bed and listen to music, just to be at home. Once you are on the court, you got to run. Everybody needs to fight, and I couldn't do that.

ALEX CORRETJA: Yes, of course. I always enjoyed to be on the court. But when you are really tired, you don't like to do anything. It was not a matter of tennis; it was a matter of life. Just physically and mentally like dead, you know.

ALEX CORRETJA: Already here in Indian Wells last year, I was 6-4, 4-1 up against Philippoussis. I start to feel like I was really tired. He came back strongly. He won the tournament. After we play Davis Cup against Brazil in Spain and I couldn't move anymore. Since that day I saw I need a rest. I didn't play Monte-Carlo, I didn't play Hamburg. I came strong, play well in Rome, French Open. Again, I get an allergy because my defense were really down, I didn't have like power. That's why after I would say September or something, I just play some indoor tournaments. I didn't care so much because I just wanted to keep in touch with the ball, but not like hundred percent into it. I don't know. I believe now I'm like playing every point, like fighting again. I can see that I can run, hit my shots. I'm enjoying because once you see that you can come back again on tennis court and do your best, it's always good.

ALEX CORRETJA: I don't know. I mean, on this moment, we don't think about Davis Cup. I just talking that we played Davis Cup before. It's going to be a difficult tie for us, but at least we play in Spain, we play on clay. I think we really have a good team no matter who plays. We don't know the team yet. About the Davis Cup captains thing, it's a matter of friendly thing that we have in Spain. It's good that we can do that.

ALEX CORRETJA: I always prefer to play on court clay. It's normal. I was born on clay.

ALEX CORRETJA: I play great tennis, and I play great tennis last night. Apparently it seems like strange, but I win my best tournament on indoors. It seems that I can play everywhere. Of course, I prefer to play on clay. I feel much better on the court. I know how to move better. Now I think I get used to, since we have to play much more tournaments on this surface. Now we have mandatory events, most of them on hard courts. I believe it's unfair, but we have to get used to. From these 13 tournaments, we will have six on clay and seven on hard courts, it would be another story. Since we cannot do that, we have to improve our games on hard courts. That's why we did it. Not me, just all the Spanish players in general.

ALEX CORRETJA: No. Monte-Carlo, Barcelona, Hamburg, Rome and Paris. It's not a very tough one, unless I won all of them.

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