ATP TOUR WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP

November 13, 1997

Thomas Muster

Q. Thomas, under the conditions, were you ready to play?

THOMAS MUSTER: Yeah, I was actually. I was prepared to play. I practiced every day. Carlos played very well. It was very difficult to come in when somebody already played two matches and is used to the conditions, the atmosphere. That's a bit strange. I think I played all right. But I made too many unforced errors, hit the ball too short. He took advantage of it very well.

THOMAS MUSTER: I knew about his problems yesterday. I read it. This morning, I warmed up so maybe I would play a match tonight, got all my equipment ready. I was waiting till Greg finished his practice. I knew he was making a decision after practice. He made it early enough to get a chance to prepare well, which is very fair of him. So I tried to play my best today. It's obviously very hard when you're already finished for the season. Then you go in and play a pretty important match. It's difficult to concentrate. But, as I said, I think I played all right, but I could have done a little better.

THOMAS MUSTER: No, not at all. The way -- playing today, I could have passed Sergi in the rankings, which means I probably would have been 8 again for the year, for next year. Basically $400,000 (inaudible), it's not that it doesn't count. But just besides the money, it was great to play. I was fighting five years, six years actually to put the surface like this. It was great for me to have a chance to play on the surface and to try it out. It felt great to play on it. I think it's a very fair surface. It was a great atmosphere to play. I was very happy that I could play a match.

THOMAS MUSTER: It's been a little bit up-and-down. But finishing 9 at the end of the year is not a bad season, I would say. It's not as good as the last two maybe, but still I turned 30 this year, it's my 14th year next year. Quite a bit of time I spend on the tour. So the summer hasn't been really exciting, so I didn't have that many matches. I was quite fresh, actually. It's not that I'm exhausted because I have had worse years, really happy the season was over. But this year, I just keep going through. The year before, I was looking for rest to go into the next season. Now I'm at the stage where I think about what I can improve now in the winter, not about resting, which is a different situation.

THOMAS MUSTER: You're talking about the council?

THOMAS MUSTER: Well, I think we're making good progress. I think we're going to have very strong personalities on the council. But obviously I'm sitting as a council member. I'm not allowed to say what is discussed inside until it's voted on the board. It definitely sure to be a lot of discussion, especially for changes in the year 2000, what's going to happen with the tour, what's happening with tennis. I can only say that we're working on every part of the structure to make improvements. We're getting along pretty well. As every democratic system, you need votes. It's politics about everything. Everybody is interested. It's a long process to change things.