U.S. OPEN

August 31, 1994

Jacco Eltingh

JACCO ELTINGH: Today was a little bit windy. The wind was coming from different directions, actually, throughout the match. It changed around a few times. I noticed it a little bit with my ball toss on my serve. I lost a little bit rhythm on my serve and I think that was because of the wind. But it was okay. It was not too warm and the wind also made it a little bit more comfortable to play.

JACCO ELTINGH: Perfect. Yeah. No complaints about that.

JACCO ELTINGH: Well, obviously, he has great groundstrokes at the net. I don't think he is that great, but he doesn't come to the net often so he doesn't use it. But he can hit the first serve, but he hardly uses that either. He puts in a high percentage of first serves. But I had so many chances and it was incredible. I feel like I should have taken the first two sets. I think the chanceswise I wasn't going with most and I had three four set points in the first set and many more breakpoints also in the beginning, breakpoints again in the second set, you know, twice a break up losing my serve three times; that is pretty embarrassing.

JACCO ELTINGH: Yeah, two times break up in the second set.

JACCO ELTINGH: It is okay. It is only one set. It is best of five, so he still has to make two more. But obviously first set is very important help when you can win in a tiebreak; maybe you can change the momentum towards you, so, yeah, I mean I would have loved to win the first set tiebreak.

JACCO ELTINGH: That was first time.

JACCO ELTINGH: Obviously, he has big potential when he is playing just for such a short time and with a high ranking - I think he is 11 this week - but I didn't feel like that today. I am confident. I have been playing well myself. I didn't feel there was any difference today just that he probably converted his chances a bit better than did I. But I had so many that I didn't feel that I was anything less than him today, but definitely he is a great player; hit some unbelievable passing shots, especially at moments where I would thought I would come in really well with a really good approach, he would still hit it by me with such speed. It is very easy, very good acceleration of the ball.

JACCO ELTINGH: ATP, I beat him twice, so I didn't -- I didn't agree with the other players at that time, but at Davis Cup he beat me so badly that I played against somebody from a different planet. It is true last time I played him it was from a different league, but before that I mean, he is still loses matches now and then and especially you should try to take him in the first two rounds that is when you have the chances. The more he goes into the tournament the better he gets because he has been there so often, so much more than the other guys, so he knows what to do and keep his shape for two weeks longer.

JACCO ELTINGH: Who.

JACCO ELTINGH: It helps him when he just wins that set probably in the tiebreak he probably goes against him, I might come up with an early break, actually what I did in the second set if I would have won the first set and make a break early second, you know, I'd like to see how he is playing then. But you know, the winner has always-- how you say, is always the one who is right, you know. In this case if he was getting angry with himself and he won, so he is doing a really good job.

JACCO ELTINGH: No, that is the way I play regardless of who I play. That is my own game my own strategy. It has been doing really well the last few months and I had no intentions to change my way of playing against Kafelnikov.