WESTERN AND SOUTHERN FINANCIAL GROUP MASTERS

August 6, 2002

Tommy Haas

Q. What was the key, do you think, to this match?

TOMMY HAAS: Well, I don't know. I mean, if you want me to go ahead and talk a little bit about it. I don't think I was really mentally there today to play. I don't know why was the reason. I was really looking forward to playing here before I warmed up this morning around 10 o'clock my arm started to hurt pretty bad during practice. I had to stop pretty early to get it fixed up before the match. Never seemed to get my rhythm. It's just one of those days where you just wonder what the hell you are doing, these days happen every once in a while. On the court as well, and just really tough for me to come back and focus. And also I have to say that Michael played extremely well every time I was trying to make a move, even if he hit the ball with the frame, the ball always landed an inch before the baseline, he was attacking and made some big balls; that is the way it went today.

TOMMY HAAS: Yeah, it bothered me also during the match, yeah. I couldn't really hit my forehand the way I wanted to -- without having to -- without having that twitch feeling in my arm. I had a lot of pain sleeping last night as well. It's really starting to annoy me. I am not taking any anti-inflammatories anymore. It's been too long. It's just incredibly annoying having such a thing for so long.

TOMMY HAAS: My shoulder, yeah. So maybe I need to just take a little break again and see what happens.

TOMMY HAAS: Also I don't think -- I never played on the grandstand neither on the center court before my matches, just on the outside courts, I think they play different than the grandstand. For some reason I guess the temperature went down a little bit today and it seemed to play way different than yesterday. I felt good in practice all the time here, the two days that I had to practice, and today the ball just seemed like they were new the whole time.

TOMMY HAAS: I don't know if it was playing so much faster, just it is just playing weird. Then the wind came as well. There was a lot of things that were really bothering me during the match that were not going for me. If you are not mentally strong, especially on a day like this, then you can lose your focus quite quick. And that's what happened pretty much. Yeah, like I said the balls stayed very hard the whole time, very new, and never really moved my feet well because I was thinking about my shoulder, and just making a lot of unforced errors, stuff like that. It's pathetic.

TOMMY HAAS: No, I am not surprised. He is the type of guy that goes out there and gives 100% every single time. He's played tremendous good tennis, especially here, he feels very comfortable here, and he always plays well, I think, always plays pretty much the same game. I am a little bit surprised how much he was actually moving forward and hitting the ball. That was quite surprising, but a lot of credit to him he played extremely well.

TOMMY HAAS: Yeah, I knew it before already. Very good.

TOMMY HAAS: I have to really think about it this afternoon, what I am going to do now; what I am going to do next. Supposed to play Indianapolis next week, followed up by Long Island. Extremely well, I have played last week, I think just need to worry about my arm. That's the most important thing right now, the shoulder, to get that 100% by the time the Open is and I should be fine.