US OPEN

September 1, 1998

Todd Woodbridge

Q. So you got cramps?

TODD WOODBRIDGE: Yeah, just don't know why. I have been feeling great coming in here, the best I felt for quite a while. And form-wise, hadn't been as good as I would have liked, but I felt really, really good. I had them early in the match too, which is why it is hard to explain why I had them. I started getting them an hour and twenty into the match. When I served for the second set, the first time I started getting them in my calves and then I basically had them from then on. I was hanging in thinking maybe I can get through it. I was trying to -- I drank so much on the court, and then the last point where I kind of went for an overhead kind of all come up in my leg and i couldn't get it out. It took four minutes to get one out, so if I had to try to keep playing, I know that from past experience it is just going to get worse. So I am feeling okay now. I don't feel bad. My energy level feels really good. So --

TODD WOODBRIDGE: I haven't been ill. I haven't been sick. I have done all my preparations properly because I am aware of what you need to do in this sort of weather. And today wasn't all that really hot, which is why for me, it really is weird. We have done some -- talked to the doctors about everything just a moment ago. We have done some blood test to see perhaps if I am low on something, and that is the reason why it happened. Because there is no real explanation why I should get cramped like I got cramped. It wasn't just a little bit. It ended up being quite severe.

TODD WOODBRIDGE: Oh, I will be fine for tomorrow because cramp generally is fluid related. But at the same time, I had six liters of fluid while I was on the court and I was well hydrated before I walked on the court. So basically -- I didn't go on an I.V. because I don't feel like I need it, and they agreed, they didn't think I needed to have it because of all the fluid I have taken in. Why....

TODD WOODBRIDGE: I've had this cramp before, had it here at the US Open about maybe six years ago, but that was because of a fitness -- my fitness at that time I had been injured and hadn't played much and hadn't been able to train much. So that was -- and it was extremely, extremely hot that day. I think it was around 96 degrees on court. That was more from the weather and my fitness. But my fitness levels are fine. Sometimes you get cramped from tension and stress, and I don't really have that either. I was a little nervous at start of my match, but you are always a little nervous at the start of every match. So it wasn't anything from that. I don't know.

TODD WOODBRIDGE: I knew I was at the stage maybe if I could have gotten two sets to Love up, you never know, I might have been able to get through. The longer it was going, I knew the worse it was going to get. I hung up to 4-All in the third set with not being able to serve properly. The first stage for me I got was feeling -- getting it in my left calf. When I went up to serve, every time I tried to serve a bigger or harder ball, that got me. So I end up trying to spin it, you know, cut it in to do it and that is not going to work all the time. You are going to win points, but not be able to perhaps get through. So that I mean, really I knew I was in danger when I didn't get through the second set and get it. If I had got two sets to Love, maybe I could have bluffed my way through there in the third. But it didn't happen. I couldn't keep doing it, but I hopefully like I am sure I will be fine for doubles tomorrow. I mean, I don't feel exhausted or anything like that right now. That is why I feel strange. I feel like I could go out and hit right now. But I don't -- my body didn't want me to do that. But I will do everything the doctors told me to do. Eat properly again tonight and hydrate and I should be fine to play all right tomorrow. I hope.

TODD WOODBRIDGE: Yeah.

TODD WOODBRIDGE: Should have helped me in some ways because the play is more to what I like and the point are quicker. So no, certainly that is not a reason for it. If the courts were slower, you were having to play more balls and run more balls down then, yeah, that would be like say, like a very, very slow hard court. But not here.

TODD WOODBRIDGE: Yeah, and the guy today, he was playing quite well. I don't think I was playing as well as what I could play. Still I was getting through that match. I know I felt like I would have got through there. Even not playing my best, I think I would have wore him down and play two more qualifiers, and, yeah, it is very frustrating. It has kind of been that sort of year for me this year. I guess -- I had a big -- a lot of high years the last couple, two, three years and I haven't taken much of a trick (sic) this year in these situations, so, maybe I will go out there and go for it in the doubles and see whether we can turn that around a little bit and then, you know, move on, move on and come back next year and really go for it.