IBM/ATP TOUR WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP

November 16, 1995

Michael Chang

MICHAEL CHANG: Thomas is playing pretty good tennis. I don't think that he made too many errors today. I think he was pretty much on his game. Serving quite well, and, you know, hitting big shots from both wings, and I think that, you know, when he is playing this tough and everything seems to be working for him, obviously, he is going to be a very tough player. Yeah, that is pretty much it.

MICHAEL CHANG: No. I never feel like that. I think that although somebody is playing very, very good tennis, I never count myself out of any match regardless of whether or not you feel like quote "a train hit you." So, I think that for me, I realize that, you know, there are times when matches will turnaround and you just never know when those opportunities will come about and, you know, sometimes it takes being down matchpoint in order to start swinging things around, but you have some of those days and it is too bad today wasn't one of them.

MICHAEL CHANG: I feel pretty good physically. It was nice to have yesterday off which was, I think, definitely helped both Thomas and I; physically, I am fine, yeah.

MICHAEL CHANG: I think he has a lot of potential. Obviously, this is kind of his breakthrough year. Everybody knew that he was very much an up and coming kind of rising star type of tennis player and I think it is something that time will tell whether or not he is going to be able to sustain play throughout season after season, but, you know, I think the way that he is playing today, and, you know, yesterday, it is a pretty good indication that he is playing some really tough tennis. So, I think as long as he is staying on the track that he is on, I think that he definitely has that capability, but I think there are a lot of players who have just a lot of talent to be able to do that, so I think he is difficult -- I think he has got a good head on his shoulders. Joakim helps him out quite a bit because Joakim has been in the top 10 before and, yeah, so that is how things go. Thomas looks quite promising.

MICHAEL CHANG: I think that is pretty much characteristics of all Swedes. I have noticed through the years of playing tennis in world team tennis, guys like Bjorn Borg, Mats Wilander, Stefan Edberg, they have all had very good heads on their shoulders, just very kind of solid in their mind and I think Thomas is a very cool-headed player and yeah, that is the way I see it.

MICHAEL CHANG: I think once again, it is going to come down to a matter of who is playing better tennis. I have played Jim six times this year and won each time, so I think it is pretty much going to come down to that. So for me, hopefully all the guns are working and definitely firing away and being very accurate. So, I think against Jim, it is always a very tough match. So, we will wait and see how things go.

End of FastScripts….