US OPEN

September 6, 2005

Dominik Hrbaty

THE MODERATOR: First question.

DOMINIK HRBATY: Yeah, I didn't play my best. I made too many mistakes against him. And he's the kind of player like he's waiting for opponent's mistakes. Can make so many. I think through the whole match I didn't work hard, as well as against Federer. Didn't make too many good ones. Then from the baseline, first set I was a little nervous. He broke me early in the set, and couldn't find the rhythm on my shots. Then I had couple of chances in the second set where I had the feeling that I can turn the match the other way. In the end I make two mistakes from the overheads and he took the chance, won the set. And in the third set he was already, I mean, on the way to the victory. He's kind of player, if you losing two sets to Love down, it's really hard to turn the match. So I was fighting, but it didn't go my way today.

DOMINIK HRBATY: Yeah. He was joking, so (smiling)... If I would play better, maybe I would beat him. But, you know, it's easy to joke now.

DOMINIK HRBATY: No, it just the design, I don't know. They made it, the Lotto company. I mean, they pay me to wear it, and I wear it. But the shirt, it's (inaudible) very, very good. You don't sweat as much as usually in the classic shirts, and also you don't feel the heat on the court that much.

DOMINIK HRBATY: No, I put the sun cream (smiling).

DOMINIK HRBATY: I don't know. I call Lotto to send me extra large if you have feeling it's too small (smiling).

DOMINIK HRBATY: I didn't call them, so... I don't need to. I think that's your job to ask them. But, yeah, I mean, if I meet the people, maybe next -- some other tournament, if you are interesting (sic), I can tell you. But I don't know. I don't really know why they -- what the design means, if it's only kind of idea, or if it was any -- it had any purpose in the beginning, or somebody just was maybe trying to make a smiley face in the back. I don't know. I don't really know.

DOMINIK HRBATY: No. I mean, it's fun. The guys sometimes say something funny. Of course I return it back to them. So it's fine. I mean, everybody's happy, and everybody's smiling, so that's the important.

DOMINIK HRBATY: I had a feeling that if I play well, I can beat him, because I played much more faster than him making -- couple times. Didn't make any -- I mean, less than his mistakes, I probably can beat him. Even I was losing - I would say somebody would say a lot or badly - I still had the feeling that he cannot hurt me. I mean, either I can win the match, or I can lose the match. So sometimes I was kind of, I mean, little surprised at how slow he played the balls. But maybe because of that, that we didn't play too much against each other, if we play next time, I will be aware of some points that he played and I will play a little different probably next time.

DOMINIK HRBATY: I was expecting that he will play a little faster, make me more run. I mean, he did it first set, go for it a little harder. But when I started to go for my returns on his serve and started to -- on my serve, I was almost every time making a pressure on him, but especially on his serves when I was returning and he started to play really slow, and I wouldn't say pushing the ball back, but he didn't play it enough deep to hurt me. And what he all did, I mean, he was waiting for my mistakes, and I made a lot of. So next time we would play, I would probably more step in the court, maybe even more wait for his mistakes. Because he didn't really, I mean -- he can't even hurt me like really making me run all over the court.

DOMINIK HRBATY: I think that's why he cannot beat him. That's why probably I beat Federer, because I play -- if I play well, then I don't give him a chance to make me run, and I don't give him a chance for his shots to do whatever he wants with me to do on the court. Because I think he plays Lleyton very slow, then Federer is, I mean, he's No. 1, he's not missing any easy balls. So that's why he works really hard and it doesn't pay off for him too much.

DOMINIK HRBATY: He would have to change his game very much since today. I mean, he beat me easy, but I don't have a feeling with this kind of game that he can beat Federer. He has to play something different. I mean, he lost I don't know how many times, so...

DOMINIK HRBATY: Eight. So, I mean, you can see that if he doesn't come up with something really different, it's gonna be nine.