US OPEN

August 29, 2002

Justin Gimelstob

MODERATOR: Questions.

JUSTIN GIMELSTOB: Pretty much, in terms of getting outplayed. I mean, yeah, that's a tough situation to deal with. I've had probably more demoralizing losses the other end, how close they were. But in terms of getting beaten so handily in such a big situation, yeah.

JUSTIN GIMELSTOB: Well, I mean, he was obviously playing a high level of tennis, I thought. I mean, there are a lot of things that contribute to it. Obviously, the major factor is that he played so well, he's such a good player. That's the staple of it. The probably smaller reasons why it was so easy, I had such a tough time the other night, I was probably a little slow, a little tired. None of that is very secondary to the fact that he played such a good match, is such a good player, put so much pressure on me from the start.

JUSTIN GIMELSTOB: It's tough to say that. I mean, certainly how many times I've played him, how many times I've practiced with him, spent a lot of time practicing. I've seen that a lot. No, I mean, the guy is one of the best players of all time for a reason, and I'm not. I don't have really the right to say that's unrealistic for him to beat me that easily. I've played him a bunch of times. That's obviously by the far the least competitive it's been. It was a struggle out there for me today. Like I said, he was way obviously too good for me.

JUSTIN GIMELSTOB: Did we even play out there? It went so quickly, I don't even remember. It didn't rain? We didn't get rained out? Yeah, I mean, it's tough. Obviously, I could have used another day. The whole day is a tough situation. You don't know if you're going to play, definitely not going to play, you might play, you might not play. Like I said, that's probably one of the other reasons why it was so brutal but not way secondary to the fact that he was playing so well and put so much pressure on me.

JUSTIN GIMELSTOB: First of all, the conditions couldn't have possibly been worse for me. It was so slow and so heavy out there, I mean, I couldn't penetrate through the court. Basically every point looked the same: me running around like a yo-yo, him standing in the middle of the court. I couldn't get enough pace on the ball because the conditions were so heavy. He was so on the ball. Those two things. I couldn't do any of my patterns; he could dictate all his patterns. There wasn't much I could do. I tried to hang in there, tried to compete, tried to do a few different things.

JUSTIN GIMELSTOB: Never been in a position to judge Andre. I don't really remember at that point. I'm sure there weren't a lot of guys that could foresee this type of comeback. All I could say is that I'm glad he did. It's good for the game. I've gotten to know him well. I'm really happy for him and the game that he did.

JUSTIN GIMELSTOB: I think my TV commentating debut went better than my tennis today.

JUSTIN GIMELSTOB: Thank you.

JUSTIN GIMELSTOB: He had -- one of his best shots was that short forehand down the line approach shot. That was pretty much the staple of his game. Any player would know what that meant if they saw it. He had a really good forehand approach down the line.

JUSTIN GIMELSTOB: I didn't mean anything by that. It was just a joke.

JUSTIN GIMELSTOB: You were listening carefully.

JUSTIN GIMELSTOB: This is Andre being too good for me basically, me not playing well enough, him playing great.

JUSTIN GIMELSTOB: There's no doubt that he's playing at a really high level. Definitely, I mean, off the top of your head, you wouldn't think there are too many guys he would be an underdog against. It's helped that he's had two routine matches. The longer you get through the draw without being really pushed helps. For sure, I would think he's one of the favorites.

JUSTIN GIMELSTOB: Antagonize the other teams to death, I guess. We're just trying to do well, like everyone else. It just happens that we probably have both pretty aggressive personalities. But, you know, we're just competing hard, trying to win doubles matches. No big secret.