COMPAQ GRAND SLAM CUP

October 2, 1998

Martina Hingis

Q. Patty said she thought that you were cramping there towards the end, and if it had been a Grand Slam tournament or regular tournament, you wouldn't have had to stop. Is that a fair summary?

MARTINA HINGIS: Well, I mean, the same thing happened to me just last week at the Fed Cup. It's a little bit different probably. You fight until the last point. But Patty also today was a little bit smarter because she saw me last week and used it. I could finish still the match against Arantxa because I was still playing better, and she didn't take advantage of it.

MARTINA HINGIS: Oh, I'm not going to die. But, you know, I'm going back home, try to relax, as I tried to do the same thing last week and also the beginning of this week. But it's kind of hard if you have to continue. Here in this facility, it's very hard from the first point on. You don't really play very hard, you sweat, and you lose a lot of energy. So I knew it might come if I have to play a harder match again. But, you know, you just have to get in better shape and try to work on it, but in tennis it's just a little bit harder because you have to take off some more weeks to get in better shape or just to try to, you know, not get the same thing again. When I played against Conchita earlier this week, in the second set, it got tough again. I thought, "Well, if I have to play the third set, it's pretty close to getting cramps again." But you don't really have the time to relax, just do something. Just the last six weeks I was in America. I played well. I had some great matches. Now you come back with the jet lag, and you've got to play Fed Cup. It's just sometimes a little bit too much. But, you know, sometimes you just want to play for your country. It was the finals of Fed Cup. You don't want to let yourself get down. This time it was just too much.

MARTINA HINGIS: I'm really a little bit tired now. Let's try. She really played very well, Patty, that's something I really have to admit. But, of course, I was still tired because of last week's match. I just didn't have very much time to relax. I would have needed a few days doing nothing, laying just around. Since I got back from the United States, I still had the jet lag, then I played at the Fed Cup where I had the same problem in the second set because there it got difficult against Arantxa. Then I got the cramps again. Since then, I didn't have the opportunity to really relax and recover. Certainly Patty today played in a similar way as Arantxa.

MARTINA HINGIS: Well, that depends. I was up 5-1 in the third set. There was only one more game to go, and I would have had it. Against Arantxa, very little would have been needed and I would have lost, too. I just played a lot of tournaments in the last couple of weeks. I had really very little time to recover and relax. That's what I will try to do now after those two tournaments that are coming up. I really want to have a real break. Then in December anyway we'll have kind of a Christmas break.

MARTINA HINGIS: Well, I finished a match against Steffi, but I couldn't walk anymore there either. I had lost two sets 6-0. So it pretty much tells what's going on. But, I mean, I didn't want to suffer till the end. It's also because you could get even more injured, especially if the same thing happens two weeks in a row. I want still to play the next two tournaments.

MARTINA HINGIS: Well, it's a lot of money you can win here, but no points, no ranking. You just kind of have to deserve to play this tournament. It was very nice. We had some difficulties. You could see that the men, they don't really play that much here. We had a very strong field on the women's side. You know, it's nice to play this tournament, but hopefully next year I'll do better.

MARTINA HINGIS: I mean, why should I continue to play those two games? I mean, I wouldn't have a chance anyway, so I just want to prevent an injury. You could see the last two games, I barely was walking, so. I still had a match point, but I felt if I was standing -- I would start with the left leg, then I just tried to move more on the right, and I was starting having them there. So it's kind of tough. But I try to be ready for Filderstadt and Zurich.

MARTINA HINGIS: Well, I've never really been a specialist in power exercises, especially for the legs. But there have been a few matches where I won because of my physical fitness. Of course, usually I try to have the other players move around on the court without moving myself, too much. Of course, there's one point where I can't run any longer. I played a lot in the US. The Fed Cup wasn't really very helpful for my physical fitness. Patty, of course, she played there, too, that's right. She had two three-set matches, two and a half or even three hours. I tried to win my matches easily. Now, of course, here I'm disappointing having lost. It's certainly right that I am not in the best physical shape, but I will definitely learn from this. Very often if you have certain assets, if you know that you can win with these assets without going to your workout studio all the time, that's right, you try to, of course, build up on your assets. I do not have that physical strength as Arantxa or others. Of course, you tend to neglect your workout studio work. Consider, for example, she has certainly tough tennis as well. She certainly battled hard in the Fed Cup. I've never seen her like that. Nowadays, if you want to stay at the top, then you certainly have to work on your physical fitness, as well.

MARTINA HINGIS: Well, she didn't look that great at this tournament either, so. Just try to go on. It's the next week. I always played very well at that tournament. I won it twice. It was like my first big tournament to win. So I'm kind of excited and look forward to play there again.

MARTINA HINGIS: Well, I had a good time. It was like two days ago, so. I went to see the soccer match. I got a new car from Opel. It was nice.

MARTINA HINGIS: Well, I don't think I played that great today. I don't think I played very smart. I started playing the other two matches in the Fed Cup. I knew kind of where I have to go, what I have to do when I go out there. I just kind of from the beginning on knew it's going to be hard; she's going to fight for every point; there are going to be long rallies. I had my chances in this match. I even had a match point, but I didn't do it. It just wasn't very smart from my side.

MARTINA HINGIS: Well, that's a little bit ridiculous, I think. We all know what happened at the Fed Cup in Geneva. I was hardly able to walk there any longer because of my cramping. But yet it has always been another atmosphere, even for the very last point you try to fight. Now again here, the same happened to me two weeks in a row, the same situation of cramping. If you had these crampings once, you know what you have to do. On the other hand, you really have to ask yourselves whether it was worth playing at the Fed Cup. But for me it was a great experience. I won my matches, and I just had a few great days at the Fed Cup.

MARTINA HINGIS: No, I never like losing; doesn't matter against who. There has been a big media hype recently about me and her playing against each other. This has been more or less the first official match between the two of us. There certainly aren't too many players in Switzerland, so it does happen quite often that you have the No. 1 and 2 of a country playing against each other. Of course, it's not too good for me to have lost, but, on the other hand, everything will go on. There are more matches to come certainly. It's good to have two players from a country playing on such a high level.

MARTINA HINGIS: No, I know how good she is. She beat other players, as well.

Certainly, I'm disappointed that I lost, and from the very beginning I have not been able to play my normal tennis.

MARTINA HINGIS: Well, towards the end there have been several calls where I thought it might have been the other way around, as well. But quite often those are lucky who fight harder for it. That's something I cannot influence. I just thought to myself that with some of these line calls, they could have gone the other way, as well. But you don't lose because of one or two wrong calls.

MARTINA HINGIS: Yes, that's quite possible that then I would have suffered even more. Now with this defeat, I've got more time to relax and recover, then practice again. You certainly always grow stronger through defeats by realizing what went wrong. Recently, I really played a lot. Especially after these two tournaments that will come, I will have a two-week break, and then I'm already looking forward to December when I can really recover.

MARTINA HINGIS: Yeah, maybe I will try not necessarily to play less, but to have longer breaks in between in order to be able to recover and practice a little bit more. If you have only one or two days, that will hardly be enough to recover your physical fitness. With the tennis year being so long, you would hardly have a chance to go to your workout studio in between. If you look at other kinds of sports, there you have a specific season which doesn't last all year long, and then during the off-season, you can practice.

MARTINA HINGIS: No, I think it was already taken back to Zurich.

MARTINA HINGIS: Yes.