AUSTRALIAN OPEN

January 23, 2006

Nicolas Kiefer

THE MODERATOR: Questions.

NICOLAS KIEFER: Yeah, I mean, I played against him once. But was long, long time ago. I mean, my goal was for sure to play aggressive. I know that I made a lot of mistakes, but that's the only chance and the only way to beat him.

NICOLAS KIEFER: Yeah, I mean, most important thing is to be happy at the end of the day and to have a win under your belt. I'm sure there were many good things in my game and a few things were not so good. But I see that still many things can happen and everything is possible. That's the most important thing and that's the key.

NICOLAS KIEFER: No, I mean, I went outside, it was great that I played aggressive the whole time. I didn't care if I made mistakes or not. I mean, I had to play aggressive against this guy. That's what I did. Of course, I had a lot of mistakes, but that's the way how it goes. If you don't make it, you can't win. On the other hand side, I didn't feel good when I was serving. But, as I said, the most important thing is to win.

NICOLAS KIEFER: Well, I mean, I can't say percentage. I mean, I would say still far away from my best. I mean, I'm happy that I won. I'm happy the way I'm playing at the moment. But still I would prefer to be injury-free and healthy. I mean, that's the most important thing. I mean, I work with Sascha, we worked a lot, we worked hard. We spend a lot of time on the court. I'm so happy that it pays off already now. It shows that we are on the right way. We just try to go on step by step and to work on different shots and try to improve my game.

NICOLAS KIEFER: Well, I mean, Seb, everybody knows he's a great hard court player. I mean, also for Davis Cup, it's going to be interesting. It's not easy to play against him. But I think we played many times, and it's almost equal. Paul-Henri, I never played against him. I mean, it doesn't matter who I get, I just try to enjoy time on the court, to have fun, to go up another level.