U.S. OPEN

September 10, 1995

Tom Gullikson

LES SNYDER: We have to quit stop meeting like this. We thought since we had a lot of you together and we have been working at getting our team for the Davis Cup match that will be played at Caesars Palace September 22nd to 4th, and we are very happy to be playing at Caesars. It looks like the ticket sales have been very promising and what we wanted to do today was to let you know that we have made the selection of our team. And I will turn the mic over to Tom, our Davis Cup Captain, whose responsibility it is to put the team together, so Tom Gullikson.

TOM GULLIKSON: Thank you, Les, I won't take much of your time. I know there is a fairly good match going on at 4 o'clock, so the two players you are watching today will be playing singles for us. And the two other additional team members will be Todd Martin and Jonathan Stark. The thinking on that was certainly Todd Martin has played some great doubles this year. He has won two doubles tournaments; been in the finals of another tournament, so not only will he give us good singles protection, should Andre or Pete get hurt in the singles, he also plays excellent doubles, you know, got a big serve and big return; he volleys extremely well. Jonathan Stark, as you know, has been a fixture among the top 10 doubles players in the world. He also possesses a big serve. And he has all the doubles skills necessary to play great doubles. So we are excited about our four-man team and the opportunity to get a little revenge on Sweden in a couple of weeks.

TOM GULLIKSON: They played once together; played in Memphis this year, you know, Stark's normal partner is Byron Black from Zimbabwe have had tremendous success together. Todd, because of his success in singles, has played sporadically in doubles, but they played well in Memphis. I think they ended up losing the quarterfinals to Nestor and Knowles, and I know they have made a commitment to play together all next year, and Todd is going to be playing a full doubles schedule next year as well as singles, so I think that will be good for Jonathan and Todd, but I think it will help Todd singles game as well.

TOM GULLIKSON: Jim -- we did talk to Jim. Obviously, Jim has been a great supporter of the team. He played great this week. We are all happy to see that. We did talk to Jim and Jim felt that he'd only played doubles twice all year, really, and that he wouldn't feel quite as confident, you know, playing the doubles, so I think, you know, we would like to save him for some match where he can play singles and play good singles for us like he has in the past.

TOM GULLIKSON: Talked to both of them. They have done a good job for us this year first two matches; unfortunately, they really haven't played well since the last Davis Cup win, and they have had a rough summer, and, you know, we felt that we really could use some singles protection too. As you recall, Pete last year, when he played, he got hurt, a couple of times when he was playing Davis Cup for us, so certainly Todd gives us that good singles protection.

TOM GULLIKSON: Once again, you know, with the emphasis on finding a good doubles player who can also play excellent singles, really the two players that come to mind are Courier and Martin, like I said, Courier only played doubles twice all year. He didn't feel that comfortable. And Todd is willing, ready and eager to play doubles, and he is also willing to play singles if he needs to.

TOM GULLIKSON: I think their four-man team looks likes Wilander, Enqvist, Edberg and, Bjorkman and Edberg and Bjorkman played the doubles here; lost first round to Suk and Vacek in very good match. I would anticipate Edberg and Bjorkman playing the doubles.