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adidas International

January 14, 2004

Chris Guccione

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. Gave him a run for his money.

CHRIS GUCCIONE: Yeah, I was quite happy with the way I played. I did one break of serve. That's pretty much all I could do. He was serving well. Didn't get too many chances to break. Had a couple in the end, but he played good points.

Q. Was that just nerves at the end there, when you lost the last serve?

CHRIS GUCCIONE: No, I don't think I played a really bad game. He hit a couple of good passes, couple return winners, and that was it.

Q. Just a few points in it, do you think it was his experience that made the difference perhaps?

CHRIS GUCCIONE: Yeah, experience probably had a factor in it. I mean, I don't think that much, but the odd point here and there, just playing the right shot at the right time. Probably little bit of a factor, yeah.

Q. How much do you take out of this whole experience?

CHRIS GUCCIONE: Oh, huge amount. Beat the No. 3 player in the world. Just shows me I can beat anyone if I play my game well.

Q. Do you know if you'll get a wildcard for the Australian Open?

CHRIS GUCCIONE: Yeah, I've already got one, yeah.

Q. Is there a danger, having beaten Ferrero, of just resting on that and thinking too much of that, do you think?

CHRIS GUCCIONE: No, I don't think so. It just gives me a lot of confidence. When I go out to play all these guys, even guys ranked a bit lower, I mean, just get that confidence to know you should beat the guys that are lower. I mean, no, I don't think there's anything to be worried about it.

Q. Have you worked out what happens now in the rankings and the prize money?

CHRIS GUCCIONE: No, I haven't worked it out yet. I'd say my ranking should go to about 380 or 390, but I'm not sure.

Q. What was Frommy's interpretation of what happened?

CHRIS GUCCIONE: I haven't really spoken to him yet. I'll speak to him later tonight. But, I mean, quick word and he said he was pretty happy with the way I played.

Q. Back to Melbourne tomorrow?

CHRIS GUCCIONE: Yeah, probably leave tomorrow afternoon or so, get ready for the Aussie Open.

Q. Before this year started, did you give yourself any ranking goal?

CHRIS GUCCIONE: I didn't know that I was gonna get wildcards into any of these events, so it's probably changed a bit now. I'm aiming for probably about maybe 150 to Top 100 if I have a really good year.

Q. How did you feel about the crowd tonight, though? They were getting into it a bit.

CHRIS GUCCIONE: Yeah, they were great. I mean, I love that sort of thing. I mean, the cheering all the time. Even on the change of ends you got these chants going around. Huge support.

Q. Because of that and the crowd, did you suddenly feel that within one day suddenly everyone knew about you?

CHRIS GUCCIONE: Yeah, it was a fairly big difference between yesterday and today. I mean, obviously yesterday I was playing against Ferrero; the crowd was sort of leaning towards him 'cause he was the runner-up last year and they sort of liked him. But today it was unbelievable.

Q. So probably you were a bit of a crowd-puller tonight?

CHRIS GUCCIONE: Yeah.

Q. Overnight sensation.

CHRIS GUCCIONE: Yeah, it was a lot of people there cheering. It was good.

Q. Wayne Arthurs said that basically serving just came naturally to him; it's so instinctive. Is that the same for you?

CHRIS GUCCIONE: Yeah, I've changed my serve a few times. Probably when I was early teens, probably up to about 15, I was sort of fiddling around with it. Then all of a sudden, I found this really good action, it was really easy to hit, I could hit it hard. Stuck with that ever since then.

Q. How did you find it? Just experimentation?

CHRIS GUCCIONE: Just working with the AIS. I mean, they videotape your serve. They pick up on little kinks and what you should do to change. Bit of practice, change all them. It was good.

Q. Is it fairly high-tech like that, with the videos and things?

CHRIS GUCCIONE: Yeah. I mean, they'll be watching you play. If they see something that doesn't look quite right, they'll get you on court, hit a basket of serves, and they'll videotape from all different angles and replay it back on this swinger program in slow-mo. They just work it out with you.

Q. As a comparison, in terms of power, what's the difference between what you were doing then and what's happened since with your serve?

CHRIS GUCCIONE: I'm not sure. I wasn't serving with radar when I was 15 or 16. But it's a lot harder, definitely.

Q. What's been the reaction in the last 24 hours from the other guys at the tournament, guys that maybe wouldn't have had a chat with you in the past? Has that happened?

CHRIS GUCCIONE: Yeah, I found today a lot of guys are coming up to me and congratulating me on my win, saying "well done," shaking my hand. So it was good, yeah.

Q. It feels good to be in that sort of company?

CHRIS GUCCIONE: Yeah, definitely. I can say that I've beat the No. 3 player in the world. It's a great feeling.

Q. On reflection, do you find this period of time a little bizarre, surreal, the media?

CHRIS GUCCIONE: Yeah, it's a lot different to the rest of the year, the Aussie circuit. Home crowd. So, yeah, it's good to get away from all the other tournaments where there's not too many people around. I love getting out here. The crowd tonight was a joke, it was so good.

Q. Did you take more interest than usual in this morning's papers? Did you check them?

CHRIS GUCCIONE: Yeah, I had a read of them all, yeah. Quite liked them (smiling).

Q. Did it come up okay?

CHRIS GUCCIONE: Yeah, yeah. I thought it was great. Yeah.

THE MODERATOR: Do you think front and back pages was sufficient?

CHRIS GUCCIONE: (Laughing) Like to get the whole paper.

End of FastScriptsâ€¦.

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