THE LIPTON CHAMPIONSHIPS

March 23, 1995

Kimiko Date Krumm

Q. Did you ever think about retiring from the match?

KIMIKO DATE: Very tired right now.

Q. No. I mean, did you ever think of stop playing during the match?

KIMIKO DATE: Physically I was ready to continue playing, but I was ready to continue to play, but because of the shoulder, it was hard. Because of the shoulder it was hard to continue, but I tried my best.

Q. What is the injury? What is wrong with your shoulder?

KIMIKO DATE: I had my shoulder X-rayed before I came here, but I always have this problem and because of the match goes higher, much goes higher round, but once I have enough rest, then I feel better.

DEBBI EDWARDS: What is wrong with your shoulder?

KIMIKO DATE: She hasn't found out yet?

DEBBI EDWARDS: Muscle?

KIMIKO DATE: She had her shoulder X-rayed and she hasn't gotten the results yet and when she goes back then she will find out.

Q. Will she be okay for the final?

KIMIKO DATE: She have one day off tomorrow, then I will try to have adjust myself for the best condition.

Q. Whom would she prefer to play in the final?

KIMIKO DATE: I am not specially thinking about opponent, but try to just do my best play.

Q. You were so far down, how were you able to turn the match around? What made the difference?

KIMIKO DATE: It was nothing special I could do, but what I was thinking was just to do my best.

Q. Were you aware that Sabatini had an identical lead over Mary Joe Fernandez at the French Open and lost in 1993, and did that ever enter your mind that this was possible in the same way?

KIMIKO DATE: I was not thinking about that really.

Q. But were you aware that that happened?

KIMIKO DATE: I knew it.

Q. When did you feel like you could win the match? At what point did you think you had a chance to win?

KIMIKO DATE: I never thought of winning because of the condition was really bad, so until the last point I never thought of winning.

Q. Because what was so bad?

KIMIKO DATE: The shoulder condition.

Q. Is this your greatest comeback and is it your greatest career victory?

KIMIKO DATE: Right now I can't think of that happened before.

Q. As a comeback?

KIMIKO DATE: Yeah, comeback match.

Q. Is your shoulder in pain right now?

KIMIKO DATE: Yes, it is painful. But right now I have ice on the shoulder, so it feels a little better.

Q. Does your shoulder bother you when serving or when hitting any kind of shots?

KIMIKO DATE: Serving, and when I hit the high bounce ball.

Q. Is it correct to say the shoulder hurt a great deal, but otherwise you were in no physical difficulty, you were fit, you could run for a long time, is that true?

KIMIKO DATE: Except for shoulder.

Q. Everything else is okay.

KIMIKO DATE: Everything else is okay.

Q. Then she could run for another two or three hours. Did you sense that Gabriela was very tired at the end?

KIMIKO DATE: It was over at three hours match, and I am sure that I made her very tired.

Q. She could feel that Gabriela was tired, puffing and so on, and slowing down?

KIMIKO DATE: I could feel that she was slowing down. But on top of that, I had the shoulder problem, so that was the first problem.

Q. How do you feel like you played today? You had a lot of unforced errors, 79 -- 79 unforced errors. Tell her -- I just want to know how you feel you played.

KIMIKO DATE: The starting -- the beginning part was not really good and -- but there was nothing I could do, so I just had to admit that I made unforced errors so much than usual.

Q. What were you thinking during the matchpoint, three matchpoints? How do you overcome those? Sabatini had three match points.

KIMIKO DATE: I was just concentrating on each point and I was not thinking about anything special.

DEBBI EDWARDS: Any other questions?

End of FastScripts.....