REPUBLIC NATIONAL MONTE CARLO OPEN

April 23, 1998

Richard Krajicek

Q. Richard, I remember last year, you getting rather upset with the lunchtime noise. Was it better for you, early match?

RICHARD KRAJICEK: Right. Now I'm going to go up and make the noise myself (laughter). I forgot about it now. Now you remind me, it's true. I'm happy I played early. Yesterday, I don't know. This morning I looked outside, it was a little bit cloudy. I thought it would be bad weather this afternoon. It's good to play the first match.

RICHARD KRAJICEK: The way I played today I thought was very good. He didn't put up much of a fight in the second set. But, yeah, I felt very comfortable. First match I also won pretty easy, in a way. I didn't feel that good on the court.

RICHARD KRAJICEK: Day before yesterday, my first match, I won, but I didn't feel in control somehow. I felt a little bit out of place almost. I was a little bit afraid of that. I thought if I have a layoff, I have to come back on hard court, especially indoors, that's pretty easy, I think. I feel very much at home. My kind of surface. But I felt clay can be difficult. I think I was lucky with my draw to play a lucky loser. Then today, yeah, I felt much better. I think if I would have played Ulihrach Tuesday, I think it would have been a different story.

RICHARD KRAJICEK: The last, about five weeks before this tournament started, I started working out physically a lot. Then two weeks before the tournament started, I started hitting balls.

RICHARD KRAJICEK: No. I was in London.

RICHARD KRAJICEK: I thought you said Bercy.

RICHARD KRAJICEK: The week after in Rotterdam, I lost in the semifinals to Jan Siemerink. That was my last event.

RICHARD KRAJICEK: Yeah.

RICHARD KRAJICEK: Sorry?

RICHARD KRAJICEK: Four weeks ago.

RICHARD KRAJICEK: 26th of March, it's a girl. Emma is her name. Everything went very smooth, especially for me (laughter). Everybody says it's tough, labor, but I thought it was okay.

RICHARD KRAJICEK: They went back to Holland. They were here until Monday.

RICHARD KRAJICEK: Just to be on the safe side. She's a pretty sweet girl, Daphne also. You never know. She had to go to the doctor anyway after four weeks, they check the baby completely. They had to go back anyway, so it was a good combination, good excuse to get back.