TMS - THE ERICSSON OPEN

March 28, 2001

Andy Roddick

Q. Talk about the pressure that he puts on your serve with his ability to get everything back?

ANDY RODDICK: Yeah, it definitely makes you think a lot about it when every serve is coming back. That is what he is known for. He has great reactions and he is just a great player.

ANDY RODDICK: Yeah. The crowd has been great here. It's helped me through four matches and they were trying as hard as they could to help me today, but I didn't help them back. It was a great crowd all week.

ANDY RODDICK: A lot. Now I know I can do it. So hopefully I will build on that and have a couple of more good results.

ANDY RODDICK: No, not really. It is tennis-changing. I played different tournaments and, you know, I will get to play the big boys more often now which is going to be great. I am looking forward to it. But it has been a great week. I played well all week. And I am very happy.

ANDY RODDICK: I think he is difficult for anybody to play against. He puts a lot of balls back and he makes you beat him. If you are having a good day -- if you are having an off-day, it is going to be a long day.

ANDY RODDICK: I played okay. The credit goes to him. He played a great match. I played some good points. He came up with some shots; all the credit should be with him.

ANDY RODDICK: I have like a nerve in there is messed up somehow. So when I try to line up and actually crank out on the ball sometimes it would cramp up right before I hit it. It happened a couple of days ago, but yesterday it didn't feel that bad I think playing yesterday made it a lot worse. When I have to use a lot of wrist action on my serve I couldn't do it so basically all I had was the hard one and you are not going to serve a high percentage with that serve all the time.

ANDY RODDICK: I knew going in I was going to have to battle with it. There is not much you can do with this for this sort of injury. I went out there. I tried my best. I gave it a shot. That is all I could ask of myself today.

ANDY RODDICK: I am excited. I want to go over there and get ready. Clay court is not a mental block for me. I welcome it. I am looking forward to it.

ANDY RODDICK: I grew up playing on clay every other day when I was younger. Because they had it at the academy that I went to. I am pretty comfortable on it.

ANDY RODDICK: I haven't played -- after this tournament I kind of have to redo my schedule because I can get into tournaments now that I couldn't get into before. I don't have any definite answers right now. I am going to have to talk to my coach and we are going to have to figure something out.

ANDY RODDICK: No, it is not on at all. They said it at beginning of this tournament and I played care-free tennis. That is kind of the way I play. People talk about it a lot more than I think about it. I am just a tennis player. I am not, you know, future whatever. I am here trying to play like everybody else.

ANDY RODDICK: Yeah when the legend say he could be good or he is playing well, I mean, that is obviously a great compliment and it is an honor also.

ANDY RODDICK: Any time you lose you don't feel good, but as long as I go in and give it my best shot and know that I didn't hold anything back and I tried, and I can live with it. That is fine by me. Also I had a good week. It is best week of my career so far so I am not going to go into some tantrum because it wasn't my day.

ANDY RODDICK: I haven't thought about it. I hope so. We will see.

ANDY RODDICK: I am definitely thinking about it right now for sure. Yeah, I am definitely thinking about it right now so we will see.

ANDY RODDICK: The night that I played Pete when I was out to dinner and I started feeling it. It wasn't bad. Yesterday it was bad in the morning but it got a lot better by match time. I thought last night it was feeling good. I thought it was just like one of those day things that you get, but this morning I woke up and it was thinking something else.