NASDAQ-100 OPEN

March 29, 2004

Andy Roddick

THE MODERATOR: Questions.

ANDY RODDICK: If that counted for a point or half a point or something towards our Davis Cup tie, maybe. But I was playing this match for the NASDAQ. Obviously, you can't help but think forward a couple of weeks to the Davis Cup tie. But winning tonight really doesn't do anything to help our chances in Davis Cup.

ANDY RODDICK: He's a different kind of returner because, you know, he just tries to take it and just goes for it no matter what. Normally, you know, I sometimes have problems with the guys who just kind of poke it and, you know, then play it out from there. But it's weird. Sometimes we played and I've served okay. Sometimes he gets a hold of it. It's tough to play him because there's not a whole lot of rhythm either way. He's just gonna take a cut. If he makes good contact, then you're in trouble. If not, then you're looking all right.

ANDY RODDICK: I was thinking, "This is really beautiful. He hit that shot and now we're at 30-all at 3-all in the third." That was a cute shot. I tried as best I could to just kind of keep going and kind of pretend that maybe I just played a great point and he came up with a passing shot and didn't hit the behind-the-back or something.

ANDY RODDICK: Actually, I was just talking about it with JJ. He said, "You thought you hit it long?" I go, "Yeah, I thought I hit it long." I mean, I knew I had the shot and I knew if I hit it, I had the direction on him. I had him leaning. He was kind of off balance because I'd been going at him a couple times. So, you know, luckily, I gave myself a little room. But even when you hit a shot like that, you can be really, really sure that it's going in, but you still have that little thing in the back of your mind that says, "I hope I didn't just really screw that up."

ANDY RODDICK: Yeah, it's right around graduation time four years ago (smiling). It's weird. You know, I'm sure it will be pretty surreal. I'm sure we'll look around the faces in the stands and go , you know, "That guy worked at Einstein's when we used to skip second class," and all that kind of stuff. But I'm sure it will be extremely, extremely surreal for us.

ANDY RODDICK: Yeah, I'm still alive. That's the goal going into a match. It definitely wasn't the prettiest thing that I've ever come up with. But I'm playing on, so that's what I came in tonight to try to do.

ANDY RODDICK: I don't want to.

ANDY RODDICK: I don't -- I mean, I hardly remember Doha. That was really, really, really, really, really ugly. I didn't feel like I was in it the whole time. With Jonas, you almost know what you're gonna get. He's gonna attack you all the time, he's gonna try to put you under pressure and you have to do as best you can to force your game upon him and maybe come up with a couple passing shots here and there and focus in on bearing down every point. There's not a whole lot of mystery behind what Jonas is gonna try to do.

ANDY RODDICK: Yeah, I mean, with athletic -- I mean, he's really athletic. He gets going one way or another. Definitely, the thing with Jonas is when you hit a passing shot, you have to hit it hard. Otherwise, he's gonna put it away. If you get something on it, then maybe you have a chance. That's kind of what I was trying to do out there.

ANDY RODDICK: Yeah, I played Canas once in the finals of a Masters Series in Toronto and lost that one. He was playing great tennis that week. I think he beat five Top 10 players in a row or something. So I'll definitely be looking forward to that. Either way, I'm going to have to hit a lot more balls than I did tonight, that's for sure. It will be a different type of match than I've played thus far in the tournament. But I think they're still waiting to go on, so hopefully they'll beat each other up tonight.