AUSTRALIAN OPEN

January 16, 2006

Andy Roddick

THE MODERATOR: First question, please.

ANDY RODDICK: It didn't.

ANDY RODDICK: No. I mean, entirely different tournaments. I mean, different circumstances. You know, I stopped thinking about that a while ago. I'm not going to carry that with me for a long time.

ANDY RODDICK: I felt good because, you know, even the points I was losing, I felt like I was losing them on my terms. I thought I was hitting the ball big and attacking. It felt clean today.

ANDY RODDICK: You know what, if I would have had a tough one, I would have said, yeah, it's great to have a tough one. Since I won easy... It's typical, a win is a win in my mind. Tough, easy, you kind of just want to keep advancing.

ANDY RODDICK: I don't really pay too much attention to aces. I like to get my first serve percentage up above 60, 65%. That's the number I look at. I think it was at 58 tonight. That's a little low. But it did get better as the match progressed. I felt like I was hitting them well. I was missing them by an inch or two. You know, that's probably the shot I worry about least, though.

ANDY RODDICK: I felt like I just maybe lapsed in concentration a couple times. Like I played the big points pretty well, and then, you know, I'd be up 30-Love sometimes and kind of miss a couple shots. But I guess you'd rather have it that way than, you know, the other. But overall I thought it was a pretty good performance.

ANDY RODDICK: You know, it was a little long just because the women's match went a little ways before us. But either way, I mean, I know going into here and in the US, I've played a lot of night matches historically. I kind of know to expect it. You get kind of anxious waiting around all day, but that probably goes for both players.

ANDY RODDICK: Yeah. Hasn't changed since yesterday.

ANDY RODDICK: It wasn't so much Kooyong. It was just the work that was put in leading up to the event. I don't think you can judge your preparation on two matches at Kooyong. I think it has to do with the six or seven, eight weeks of work that you kind of put in preceding. I was pleased with that because I had a solid window that I could kind of put in my work on a daily basis and kind of know what was ahead of me as opposed to last year I had a pretty quick turnaround after the Davis Cup final. Just as I felt like I was relaxed, we were right back into it. I felt like I had a little bit more of a purpose this off-season.

ANDY RODDICK: It was, because I had a back injury at the end of the year, so I missed Shanghai. About the time that Shanghai was finishing, I was healthy and started training again. Whereas if I played Shanghai, probably would have taken another 10 days, two weeks off after that, so I actually got a two-week head start on it.