WIMBLEDON

June 30, 2001

Todd Martin

TODD MARTIN: Talking to you guys (smiling). I'll be pretty relaxed this weekend. I've spent most of my off days so far just trying to recoup and get some rest for my next match. That's so far worked pretty well. That won't change.

TODD MARTIN: I had one draining match. My first-round match was sort of I guess as routine as a four-set match can be, I guess. Then yesterday it had all the makings of a draining match. Since I got through that fourth set, it definitely saved me a lot of headaches and probably a few muscle aches, too.

TODD MARTIN: I'm excited. It's always nice to play here. Then when you play somebody like Tim, who I consider to be a pretty good friend of mine, I think the specialness of it is increased. It's obviously got the possibility of being on Centre Court again, which is I think the place where most everybody would like to play, get a chance to play against not only my opponent but have some external factors to cope with, too. I enjoy that. On top of all that, it's an opportunity to progress further through Wimbledon.

TODD MARTIN: We're pretty good friends, yeah.

TODD MARTIN: Occasionally, yeah.

TODD MARTIN: No. I, in fact, feel it's easier. I feel you can go out there, bust your tail, lay it all on the line, not risk anything with your friend. You know, at the end of the day, hopefully he'd be happy for you if you win, you'd be happy for him if he wins.

TODD MARTIN: You know, that crowd was fair, too. It was a great crowd, in fact. The toughest I would say in Sweden, we've played some Davis Cup ties in Gothenburg. At least off the top of my head, those are the ones where you feel it. In Spain, at least the first couple days they were pretty well-behaved, and certainly very fair, and enjoyable to be a part of. Granted, I was getting my tail kicked, but to know that the crowd wants one player to win more than the other, I think it's the ideal setting for a sporting event. I look forward to it tomorrow.

TODD MARTIN: Sweden was probably tough because I was probably the least prepared for it, and they were -- we were indoors, and they let us know we were indoors, that their team was doing well or was starting to do well. Other than that, Paris Bercy is the worst place in the world to play.

TODD MARTIN: I mean, I'm as confident as I think I can be. I'm not confident that I'll go out and win, but I'm confident that I'll definitely have a fighting chance. I feel good about those chances. That's all I can ask for.

TODD MARTIN: Well, I mean, considering I think we're pretty close to even head to head, I don't think there's much impact other than maybe the subtle knowledge of what our tendencies are. You know, we're playing on grass courts. There's not a whole lot to fool around with style of play. I mean, we'll pick up on each other's serving tendencies as the match goes on. We certainly don't remember specifically what happens at 30-40 on the second serve from two years ago when we played in Birmingham. You know, we're both going to be charging the net probably a fair bit. Whoever serves and returns better, makes some good plays at the net will probably come out on top.

TODD MARTIN: Well, fulfilled. I've been able to play them. When it comes down to it, that's really the most important thing. I've had my share of pleasures and thrills here, but I've also had a few disappointing moments. But you go through the draw, there's probably only one guy who hasn't had too many disappointing moments here. That's why I'm back, to see if I can't have a few more thrills and a few less disappointing moments.

TODD MARTIN: That part of it did not break my heart, no. It hurt. It certainly stuck with me for a little while. When it comes down to it, look at the position I was in; look at the setting and the arena. I just can't be, in the long-term, too disappointed about it. I provided myself an opportunity that very few people have provided themselves with. It just so happened that I wasn't up it that day, which was disappointing. Immediately it hurt a lot. You know, my next tournament out was in I guess Toronto that year. I was in a similar situation with Cedric, the third round maybe there, serving out a match. I felt a little bit of the nerves coming. I was able to cope with it. It hasn't happened to me too many times since. That happened here again on the same court last year, but I can't control everything. Frankly, both Mal and Andre played good games specifically, an extended period of good tennis in those fifth sets.

TODD MARTIN: First of all, I think he deals with it as well as possible. I don't think it's something that I'd like to be subject to personally. I'm not implying that he enjoys it. It's an interesting dynamic, for sure. I've never had to walk around and see my face on light poles, stuff like that, at the queue at Wimbledon, nor have I had to read about what weird quirks I have in the tabloids.

TODD MARTIN: A few, yeah (laughter). The fact of the matter is, that's the way things are. I think he's humored by it sometimes and makes the most of it the rest.

TODD MARTIN: We'll see. I mean, I would have thought I'd do it last year. You can't introduce me to a person who is serving at 5-1 or 5-2 in the fifth set who is not confident of their chances. I feel, posed with the same opportunity, I don't think I'd lose. You know, that's for us to prove on Monday.

TODD MARTIN: I think you'd find if you seeded 128 players, the seedings would be more and more accurate as you went along. However, I don't believe that seeding 32 players does much more than preserve the telecasts. I think Wimbledon is still going to have the seats filled, somebody's still going to be awarded the trophy at the end of the week. But what happens is you secure your top players from a possible volatile first- or second-round match a little bit more than you used to. I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing, but it is not necessarily necessary.

TODD MARTIN: Absolutely. I think you saw it yesterday. I was very impressed with the way Sjeng was playing, you know, had plenty of opportunities. I don't know too many guys who don't like 12,000 or 15,000, how many people sit in Centre Court, scream when you win a point, you know, applaud politely when you lose one. That's a pretty good balance for him. You saw it. I mean, he got emotional and pumped up. I think that helps most guys' tennis.

TODD MARTIN: My half of the court's my half of the court.

TODD MARTIN: You can still see them, right (pointing to his gray hairs). I feel pressure, sure. I am getting to be one of the older fellows on tour. There's a number of guys who are a lot closer to retirement than I am.

TODD MARTIN: Yeah. But I'm still able to play very good tennis. I don't really feel like any of my injuries linger. I have to do a lot more maintenance work than most of the guys to stay healthy. You know, I probably have a better chance of tweaking something here or there when I walk out on the court. I've had one surgery, and that surgically repaired elbow is in pretty good shape. It's more, Is my mind ready to compete? Do I have the desire to put it all on the line again? Every day I walk out on the court, that's the fact. It will continue to be until I've definitely had enough.

TODD MARTIN: The mentality we took into Birmingham is the exact same mentality that I'll take into my match with Tim on Monday. And it's not to silence the crowd or to quiet, you know, whatever; it's simply to go out and do my job the right way. It's not to go out and win; it's to go out and do my job the best I can, try to put myself in the position to win. That's the beauty of it. We'll see who is the better player on Monday.

TODD MARTIN: I've beaten him here. I don't think I've ever played Greg here.

TODD MARTIN: It should be interesting (smiling). I had a conversation with John Fitzgerald yesterday. You guys don't mind if I talk about an Australian, do you?

TODD MARTIN: He was saying how interesting he thought grass court tennis was. I'm a huge fan of clay court tennis. But once I talked to him a little bit about it. You can look a lot deeper than what we tend to at this style of tennis. I think you're seeing now with even more backcourt players being able to compete on these courts, due to the quality of the courts and the players, you'll see a lot of interesting stuff in that match. It won't be groundstroke rallies, but there will be so many interesting dynamics both game-wise and also emotion-wise. I think if we could dwell on the more interesting, positive factors of it rather than counting the number of balls hit other than serves, the fact of the matter is you put a guy out on the tennis court, he has a second serve to hit breakpoint, that's the toughest shot he's going to hit all day. It's not the groundstrokes. That's for your NBC broadcast, too, Bud (laughter).

TODD MARTIN: About Ivanisevic?

TODD MARTIN: A lot it will are 15-Love, 30-Love, 40-Love, game. Don't underestimate those 40-Love points, don't underestimate the easy holds. If you have one guy holding at 15 the whole set, another guy who's holding at love, maybe getting to deuce once, they get to a tiebreak, a tone has been set. One point needs to be won on the other guy's serve. I think if you focus on that, these matches, Goran and Krajicek years ago when they played deep into the fifth, it was an amazing match, amazing. If you looked at point by point, if you just looked at the quality of each point, you'd say, "Gee, grass court tennis is really boring." If you look at it as a competition between two athletes, it's one of the more interesting matches that we've had in the last few years. That's the disappointing thing for me, is to see -- I'm not going to blame any of you, but the media talks about the speed of the game and all these things when, you know, in college basketball, they play zone defense and they play man-to-man defense. They don't get criticised for one or the other, it's simply a strategy. In football, soccer, your football, there's different strategies, and different strengths. Teams work to their strengths. You can't go out and blame Ivanisevic and Rusedski going out there to hit serves. I think it's going to be a great match. I thought yesterday's match with Andy was awesome. It wasn't just because Goran played so great. It was because, you know, Andy had one chance on the return game, and he made the most of it. It made the match very interesting.

TODD MARTIN: Absolutely. But I don't have to.