PILOT PEN INTERNATIONAL

August 14, 1996

Michael Joyce

MICHAEL JOYCE: My arm?

MICHAEL JOYCE: Actually it's been getting better. Last week it was really bad. I started in LA like two weeks ago, and it just -- last week in Cincinnati, I couldn't even like eat with my right hand, it was really sore. I began a lot of treatment. It felt better before the tournament here so I decided to play. Actually it's getting better. The only thing is I just can't serve too hard which makes it tough. Out there serving like 95 miles an hour or something. That's the thing, everybody's got little nagging things. Hopefully it should get better before the US Open.

MICHAEL JOYCE: Actually I'm playing Long Island next week. I'm playing doubles here. Doesn't seem to be getting worse by playing, not getting better. As long as it doesn't get worse, they said I can keep playing with it, as long as I can stand the pain.

MICHAEL JOYCE: Right. I'm looking more towards the US Open this year. Last year I had a very good summer, and I ended up going to the Open, mentally exhausted for it. I lost first round. This year I'm trying to gear most of my like training playing three out of five sets. I've been playing tennis a good three, four hours a day, doing a lot of off-court training, trying to get in good shape to play three out of five sets at the Open. I've been trying to mentally and physically get prepared for it.

MICHAEL JOYCE: That's where it actually started, but that was different. I think this actually came from that. Newport, the whole thing started in Newport, 2-All in the first set, hit a serve and I pulled a muscle in my pec is what they said. I took off like ten days. Then when I played LA, I think I was compensating for that and ended up hurting my elbow. Might be kind of related, but that's actually better now.

MICHAEL JOYCE: Sure. I knew going out I was going to give him a good match. I had a really tough match yesterday. I started yesterday so bad. I lost the first set 6-1. I think I was down 2-Love or something like that. When you start that bad, a tournament, you end upcoming back and winning, after that you feel like everything is gravy almost after that. I felt pretty loose going out there. First set was kind of rough. I was at 2-1, had like five or six breakpoints, then all of a sudden I lost the game. He had one breakpoint and broke me, up 4-2. I could have been up 4-1. Then after the first set was over, actually my arm started to loosen up. It tends to loosen up as the match goes on. I was able to serve a little better, which helped. Then I just slowly but surely started getting a better rhythm out there, started to get a good feel for the match. I thought I played a really good second set. Third set I think the tennis was actually a good level of tennis. I know at 3-All he had three or four breakpoints, was serving really big. I think that was the difference, why he won, because he came up with some really good serves when he needed them. Unfortunately tennis is a game of inchism, miss a ball by an inch, that can be the difference in a match sometimes. You know, it's encouraging to know that I can play a player in the Top 10 and stay right with them until the last 30 seconds or whenever it was. Hopefully I'll be able to make it into a positive experience.

MICHAEL JOYCE: Not really. One particular point stands out 5-4 in the third, game point, missed an easy forehand. That was a little bit to do with he had hit some great passing shots earlier in the match on a full run. Right before I hit it, I started seeing him run over there and I got scared. I ended up missing it. Besides that, there's nothing else I really think I could have done better, you know. Not too much actually. I thought I played pretty well. I wish he would have stopped acing me. Maybe I should have prayed during the match.

MICHAEL JOYCE: Personally I do a lot of -- I go to the gym about four times a week. I had a shoulder operation on my left shoulder like three years ago, so I still do a lot of rehab for it even though it's better now, just to keep it strong. So I do a lot of weights. I also do a lot of, like, distance running. I do some distance like three or four times a week. In the off days I do sprints with my coach, on-court drills, 30-second drills and so forth. It's hard to explain. A lot of different little things.

MICHAEL JOYCE: We usually run for about a half hour. I don't do too fast, maybe three miles or something, just kind of in the morning when I wake up, get the day started. I wake up like at noon. I'm joking. When I wake up in the morning, I usually run.