WESTERN AND SOUTHERN FINANCIAL GROUP MASTERS

August 13, 2003

Andy Roddick

MODERATOR: Andy improves to 51 and 13 on the season. He'll take on his good friend James Blake in the Round of 16 tomorrow. Questions.

ANDY RODDICK: I'm not really thinking about time, I'm just trying to get some more wins.

ANDY RODDICK: Well... Give me some wood to knock on or something (knocking wood). So far, you know. But, you know, we've had some very close matches before, a couple three-setters. You know, I think he's improving all the time as well, so every match is a new match. And I think, you know, the six times that I've beaten him are kind of maybe thrown out the window. I mean, it's a new match.

ANDY RODDICK: Yeah, I mean, we're -- whenever we're in Davis Cup weeks we practice together a lot and, you know, on tour. You know, fair amount.

ANDY RODDICK: Not really. I mean, I don't think it's surprising, you know, to see the depth in men's tennis. It's been there for the last couple of years, you know, at various tournaments, you know. It's just that I don't think it's surprising so much as coincidental that, you know, in a tournament where maybe a couple seeds lose, maybe they all did. So, you know, I don't think "surprising" is the word.

ANDY RODDICK: It felt good today. Actually, last week it was a bit spotty at times. I remember, I think between Indy and Washington I had it going pretty well. I think I held like 54 straight games. Last week, I was getting -- I don't know if I went through a match -- maybe I went through one match without getting broken. But I think I can improve on it.

ANDY RODDICK: I don't know. You know, I'm not big on "what if" questions. You know, who knows? Maybe if I start playing better and start getting deeper into weeks, maybe that will affect it a little bit. But, you know, I'm not sure. You can't really plan for the unknown.

ANDY RODDICK: I think so. That's definitely the first -- before aces or before anything else, I'll look at first serve percentage. That's normally a pretty good indicator. And points won on second serve is big for me as well. I figure that I'm going to get my points on my first serve if I get it in, but if I'm up around 60 percent on second serve points won, then I'm thinking I'm gonna be pretty tough to break on the day.