RCA TENNIS CHAMPIONSHIPS

August 12, 1996

Mark Woodforde

MARK WOODFORDE: Yeah, I think he played pretty well today. He has won three matches in qualifying and, you know, he was just on his toes. I think I remember when I first came on the Tour you qualify in a big tournament and you want to -- you are playing someone that you feel you can beat. I didn't miss too many balls. He missed a few in the second. Then in the third he was serving very well. I couldn't get a look in really. And then just finally squeaked it out, hopefully maybe on experience.

MARK WOODFORDE: Yeah, it went through my mind, actually when he thought he got a bad call. I mean, it didn't feel like I hit it long, but when he looked at the linesman and the crowd started booing, went through my mind, well, this is what happened to me last week and, you know, matchpoints, and although I didn't have the chance like he had, he had a couple of good chances to put balls away, never did, so that was the difference. I wish I had that chance last week, but, yeah, it is nice to come back after matchpoints down. It means you want to win the match and you -- and you didn't give up hope, and although it was very close - too close.

MARK WOODFORDE: Yeah, it is nice to -- I mean, any time you win a first round in a big tournament it is great; probably the difficulty today was that I, you know, I just didn't, you know, I hadn't played Wade. I played him a few years ago and he defaulted early in the match, so I mean, I had no idea what was going to -- how he was going to play against me. He was obviously hitting the ball well. He qualified last week and again this week, so, you know, to get through a match like that, I mean, I am hitting the ball quite well myself at the moment although things today, you know, weren't, you know, working that well, but I just hung in there and so that is a positive for me and that is something that I could work on now for Wednesday. That, you know, it was always going to be a tough match for me because he wanted to -- he was going -- wanted to come out and really beat me badly and he played like that, really. So that is all credit to Wade.

MARK WOODFORDE: I mean, there is a yearning for it, but I think as far as my days of expecting to win a major title in singles is over and done with. I think I accepted that early this year and, you know, more or less, I just relax a little bit going into tournaments and I have a had a great year as far as singles have gone and the expectation is not there to win all the tournaments like, you know, I used to when I wanted to win all the time, but now it is, more or less, I know I am one of the older guys on the Tour; it is just not feasible for me to be winning singles tournaments and doubles tournaments; not that I am letting up my singles career, whatsoever, it is still my priority to be the best singles player I can and, you know, I have no complaints with my results this year, really at all.

MARK WOODFORDE: We have had a pretty intense, you know, few months. French Open was the one major that we haven't won and we missed out this year, so it was a lot of pressure on us to do well. Then going over on to the grass, Queens and Wimbledon securing the fourth title, a lot of focus on us to win; which we did, and then straight away there is, you know, on the hills of Wimbledon there is the Olympics and I think not only our expectations were high to win gold, but it was, more or less, you know, a lot of Australian -- a lot of focus on that from home that we were going to win. It was a lock-in that we were going to win gold. It is a nice feeling to have that confidence, but again it is a tremendous amount of pressure and then, you know, we have got the U.S. Open coming up, so it is -- we had to juggle, you know, three tournaments in between the U.S. Open and keeping in mind that we want to be fresh and happy to play with each other, so, you know, last week we tried to play and I think we got -- we probably lost due to the lack of crispness about us that I think it just took its toll playing the last couple of months together. And then, you know, unfortunately Indy was the one where we selected that we weren't going to play and probably next week as well, so our main priority is to win the U.S. Open again now once the Olympics is done with, so unfortunately, this one and next week were the ones that were left out. It is just for us to freshen up and if we are playing doubles week-in and week-out, you spend a hell of a lot of time together. You come around to a major tournament you just, you know, already Todd -- whatever I say is annoying Todd and whatever Todd says annoys me a little bit, so we just need to, you know, be a part and so, you know, we need to not play doubles for a couple of weeks.

MARK WOODFORDE: This week we won't -- I don't think either of us will, you know, talk much about doubles. We will probably just spectate, you know, what is going on as far as the doubles tournament, but we probably won't play next week and then later in that week we will start to do some doubles drills. But this year has been a lot different because we haven't practiced a whole lot of doubles at all. Other years, once we have got put out of our singles, we practiced a lot of angles and getting ready for doubles. That worked for us. This year we have had the best year and we really haven't practiced a whole lot of doubles because we have been doing so well in singles as individuals; we haven't had the need to really be out on the practice court. Yeah, I mean, we have still got to stay in touch with it because there are guys out there that are honing their games for doubles non-stop.

MARK WOODFORDE: Thanks.