adidas International

January 11, 2003

Lindsay Davenport

THE MODERATOR: First question for Lindsay, please.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Yeah, no, for sure. She is a lot more consistent and a lot more confident, and a lot of times in this game confidence is kind of what you need to get you over the hump of being a semifinalist or quarterfinalist to being winner. You could just tell, the way she plays now. Breakpoint down or the big points, she's so confident in her shots, and you can really tell it in the shots she comes up with. I mean, she's always been very talented and very athletic. I think just right now she's very, like I said, consistent and confident.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: It was okay. I would have liked to have been more aggressive and been able to be inside the court a little more, but I had a very hard time timing the ball with this wind, never quite sure where the strike zone was going to be. And I think that a really windy day favors the faster player, because -- and so I was a little bit, you know, I was trying to get to the ball in time, and I was trying to get it to where I felt it was the right spot to hit the ball. But it was really tough to control the ball out there the last few days.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: You know, I do. I felt like this is the week I needed, a lot of matches. I don't worry about the losses too much. I hope it's not this windy in Melbourne. But, you know, there's definitely some things in my game that I need to improve on. My first serve percentage here has been pretty bad. I'd like to be a little bit more aggressive and consistent on the returns. But, hopefully, that's the kind of stuff that clicks on one day and can help me go far in the next two weeks.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: There's a sense of disappointment every final you don't win, but some days -- I never really felt like today I played well enough to have a chance. Some of the other matches, I've played well and felt that I let it slip away. Today, it's more of a disappointment that I didn't give myself a better chance out there. You know, like I said, I never felt like I got into any kind of rhythm on my serve or on the ground strokes. But, you know, certainly I'd love to break through and start winning some of these titles. But it's not going to happen with the way I played today, so I'm going to have to try and raise my level again and, you know, keep fighting to get back into the finals; keep, you know, plugging away.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Oh, yeah. I don't even -- I mean, I've won enough titles to where winning the next one isn't really a thought on my mind. Today, it was never close enough to really ever get a sniff of the winner's trophy (laughing).

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: It wasn't the traveling (laughing). It wasn't the rain delays. I think it was really just playing tennis. I didn't really analyze it too much, where it was playing at a certain moment or playing at a certain place. I think it was just the fact of playing tennis. I think it was a huge challenge for me to see then if I could come back and still be at the top of the game. I still hit the ball the same. Yeah, I think it was really just hitting.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: I hope. I keep trying to get there. The fall, the last few tournaments I played before I got injured, was the best tennis I played in my life, the fall of 2001. Just played great, was winning all the tournaments, was on a huge match win streak. I hope to get back to that level, but, you know, it's obviously a fight when you've been out a long time and the other girls have gotten better. But I still feel like I hit the ball well, and I've got some things I need to improve on though.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: I think so. Certain players get better. For instance, someone like Kim has improved a lot in that time. I think in the beginning of last year she might not have been playing well, but maybe she was doing things in her game to enable her to play better now. Serena has definitely taken women's tennis to another level. Just certain players like that. Now, at some point here again I'm going to try to have to get better again.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: I think she's definitely going to win a Slam. I can't tell you if it's going to be in the next two weeks, but I would think that she has a big advantage over the other players from being down here so long and playing on the Rebound Ace. She's so fast. And, you know, like I said, her game's coming together where she's cutting down on her errors. You still have to go through the Williamses, and you still have to go through some other players, but I would put her and Serena as the favorites, for sure.