TMS - STUTTGART

November 3, 2000

Lleyton Hewitt

MODERATOR: Questions for Lleyton, please.

LLEYTON HEWITT: Yes, for sure. Greg is a difficult player to play against, really. He's one of those guys who doesn't give you a lot of rhythm out there on the court. Today, I think I learned a lot from playing him last week in Basel, especially because he is such a good indoor court player. I got off to a good start today. I felt like when I got my second serves, I thought he was going to stay back most of the time. That's what he did last week. I knew that once we were sort of in a baseline rally, I had sort of the percentage on my side. I had to really take advantage of that. In the games that he lost, he gave me a couple of second serves. I took advantage of it.

LLEYTON HEWITT: Not that I could tell out there. You know, when he had to come in, I thought he played pretty well. On the passes that I did make, I thought they were pretty good passing shots.

LLEYTON HEWITT: Probably about the same, I'd say. He probably served a little bit better, I'd say, in the fact that he missed a lot of first serves last time by a big margin. He just netted a lot towards the bottom of the net. I think he actually had a lot better rhythm on his serve out there today.

LLEYTON HEWITT: You know, it's hard to say. Greg is the type of player who puts pressure on you. If you do lose your serve, you really are under a lot of pressure. Tim is obviously a more all-court player. You know, I'd have to say that yesterday was definitely a lot harder match in the sense that I was a set down and I had to really fight and sort of dig deep. In the end, sort of that 4-All game, you know, Tim had his chance to win that. It could have very easily gone the other way yesterday.

LLEYTON HEWITT: Yeah, I felt like I served one of my better matches out there today with my serving. I got off to a good start. I think I actually served more aces than Greg, which is not that common, I suppose, for a lot of players. I'm pretty happy with that.

LLEYTON HEWITT: Yeah, probably. A couple of weeks into the year, I would have given myself a slight chance. Probably going into Adelaide, I think it would have been a little too much to ask, to have a fair-dinkum chance of making the top eight at the end of the year. My goal was probably to try to get into the Top 10, try and stay there as much as possible. But to actually make the top eight and secure the spot, it was always going to be tough. As you said, at the moment I'm not there yet. Sitting on a good ticket, I think, at the moment.

LLEYTON HEWITT: I think it's a great idea by the ATP. It's got all those young guys together. Wherever you look now on the TV, the ads, all the commercials and that -- I'm not sure how many players, maybe 12 guys in it. I think this is sort of the future of tennis. I think this is a good thing to sort of have us as so-called "gladiator guys." I think the photos turned out not too bad.

LLEYTON HEWITT: I don't think so. I think we've all had to deal with kinds of pressure so far anyway. If you look at the guys they've picked, they're sort of the guys who have been successful in some kind of tournaments, or probably ranked, I assume, in the Top 30 at least, around that.

LLEYTON HEWITT: I think it's been fantastic, particularly at the start of the week. A lot of the tournaments sort of struggle when you do have a big centre court like it does here. You know, you go out there Monday, Tuesday morning match, there's no one in the crowd. It's just sort of a dead atmosphere. I think it's a very good idea to get a bit of emotion out there. I think it's been good.

LLEYTON HEWITT: Fantastic. I don't think it puts off the opponent. I think it's good to hear your name, you know, get the Germans behind you over here.

LLEYTON HEWITT: It's hard to say. You know, they've both won Grand Slams this year. You can never write those guys off, I don't think. Pete beat me just a few weeks ago in the US Open semifinal. I think those guys will rise to the occasion of playing the big tournaments, the Grand Slams. You know, I don't know how many years they've got left in them, but I think for sure the next group of guys are these "New Balls" guys coming up, for sure.