AUSTRALIAN OPEN

January 23, 2006

Dominik Hrbaty

THE MODERATOR: Questions.

DOMINIK HRBATY: I don't know. I mean, I was tired already in the second five-setter, so it was already quite enough. Like I said yesterday, I would have to be really lucky to win the match. He was more fresh. I think you could see after the third set he was one step ahead of me. I was trying, but I didn't have enough power to run for all the balls. I mean, he played good angles. Then after he stopped missing, and that was tough.

DOMINIK HRBATY: No, I think he got very lucky. He hit a really lucky shot, lucky return from my first serve. He hit it on the line. I think, you know, that you cannot say in the tennis that you going to hit exactly on the spot 10 centimeters by 10 centimeters. I mean, it can be 10 centimeters or 20 centimeters longer or shorter. Then he won another long rally where I was in offense, and he came with a really good shot down the line. And after that I think he started to run a lot more. He started to play more aggressive. His balls went in. I don't feel like I made the mistakes to lose the match. I think he played well to beat me.

DOMINIK HRBATY: At 4:00 in the morning, I was sitting in the bathroom having my feet in the water because I had so much pain that I couldn't sleep. I had a really bad blister on my feet. Then all day I was basically taking care of my feet and went for a swimming pool, had a massage, was worrying if I will be even able to run on the court. In the end, I was really happy the way I played. I mean, I had the pain, but I overcame it and I tried to fight to win the match.

DOMINIK HRBATY: Yeah, of course. I mean, if you don't sleep after the match like with Andreev, if you sleep maybe two or three hours, then you know that you have to play again another day, basically I couldn't put the shoe on, it was not easy. And even before in the warm-up in the morning, I was not sure about my game. But then I got into the match, so I forget about the pain. I was just playing the tennis.

DOMINIK HRBATY: Yeah, it's on the left foot.

DOMINIK HRBATY: No. We played in the night. In doubles, you play every second match -- every second ball. You have only half court. I just tried to hit the serve and then Michal was trying to win the point at the net. So I didn't move too much. Anyway, we had the chances. For sure, it didn't take any power from me.