WIMBLEDON

June 25, 2001

Chris Woodruff

CHRIS WOODRUFF: It's been a tough year. I don't really know what's happened. I've lost a few close matches, and I played really well today. It's just I was in a good frame of mind mentally.

CHRIS WOODRUFF: I think it's a little weaker, definitely. Not a lot, but just definitely the side that is a little weaker than his backhand.

CHRIS WOODRUFF: Just, you know, I kind of know where he likes to go from having played him. We've played a lot now. But with him, the thing that -- you have to return his serve or he bullies you around the court. So it's obvious, you got to struggle to return his serve, he's 12 in the world or whatever he's ranked now, 14, I have no idea. So the key with him is to return his serve.

CHRIS WOODRUFF: No, I just had a few good things with the sports psychologist back at home, I talked to him a couple days ago. We went over a few things that we were trying to accomplish, and the tips that he gave me really worked well.

CHRIS WOODRUFF: Well, for starters we were just trying to -- we were playing point by point. That was one of our main objectives. Instead of worrying so much about what the score is and the surroundings, we're just going to play point by point. That's the only thing I can control out there. And I give a lot of credit to him.

CHRIS WOODRUFF: Well, he -- I wasn't getting a lot of chances. He kept going up the T and the deuce side and acing me time and time again. Then he -- normally, he likes to serve up the T in the ad side, but he was going out wide. I just wasn't getting a lot of break points. I told myself -- his first serve percentage dropped a little bit. I told myself that when I get second serves, I need to try to make the most of them. Because if I just hit the return back, he starts moving me around the court, I can't ever get into the point and play it the way I want to. So that was something that I was working hard to do, was put pressure on his second serve.

CHRIS WOODRUFF: I didn't hear anything out of Chuck today, really. Word had it when I got done playing that he was saying some things. But I didn't -- I didn't hear anything out of him. I heard a couple of comments. But he's like that. He's a very intense man. I'm sure he wants his son to do extremely well. He's never said anything bad about my game or derogatory towards me, and, you know, never heard him say one bad thing about my game.

CHRIS WOODRUFF: Well, he's the one who's having a great year. I'm having a terrible year. I mean, so if anybody has to really worry about it, it's me. I'm playing right now to get into the US Open. That's my objective. I'm ranked, I think, 97 now in the world, and that's not gonna cut it. You know, I'm going to have to ask for some exemptions into Montreal and Cincinnati if I want to play in the big tournaments this summer. But the win today was very big for me - very big. Like I said, I was playing for the US Open. And you can bet your bottom dollar that I know when the cutoff for that tournament is.

CHRIS WOODRUFF: Magnus Larsson. It doesn't get much easier. You go from Gambill to --.

CHRIS WOODRUFF: Yeah, I don't think he was playing as long as we were. It doesn't get any easier. My section of the draw - even still, they've moved Bjorkman out of there to another section - is, I would say, the toughest section. We had Bjorkman, Martin, myself, Jiri Novak, that's just -- Gambill. It was Larsson, Rosset. It doesn't get much tougher when I've looked at some of these other sections.

CHRIS WOODRUFF: Never played him.

CHRIS WOODRUFF: Yeah. No, he's a very good player. Obviously, he's very accomplished. I have to go out there --.

CHRIS WOODRUFF: Well, hopefully we'll keep that streak going.

CHRIS WOODRUFF: I hope so. Just -- I'm sure that maybe I can sneak in on their front page of the sports with the Bye.com tournament that's coming to Knoxville. I'm sure they're writing a lot about that.

CHRIS WOODRUFF: He was thrilled. He thought I competed just like you said, I was very stoic, I competed really hard, and learned also a lot from watching Goosen. He was the same way when he played in the final round of the US Open - not too high, not too down, or low. I think that's the way you have to be. Actually, I think more so in golf than tennis. But it helps if you just kind of stay on an even keel.

CHRIS WOODRUFF: That's the goal now. That's all I'm trying to do. The way I played today, that can be me. If you look at tapes when I won the Canadian Open a couple years ago, that's the way I behaved myself there.

CHRIS WOODRUFF: Well, I think you have to be who you are. By nature I'm a good competitor. I have a tendency to get myself too worked up over things that I shouldn't. It's just old habits die hard, and that's one that, you know, same way at anything I do. Golf, it's the same. I played in a golf tournament a couple weeks ago, that was the same thing happened. I got so worked up that I couldn't play to my ability.

CHRIS WOODRUFF: I'm getting married. I don't know about the kids.

CHRIS WOODRUFF: Right, right.

CHRIS WOODRUFF: July 14th of next year.

CHRIS WOODRUFF: We'll get married in Knoxville.

CHRIS WOODRUFF: Kerri.

CHRIS WOODRUFF: K-e-r-r-i.

CHRIS WOODRUFF: Schwartz.

CHRIS WOODRUFF: She does. She works for broadcasting in Knoxville for a radio station, The River.

CHRIS WOODRUFF: Well, her stepdad lives there. She was born in Knoxville, her parents got separated.

CHRIS WOODRUFF: She does both - lives in Knoxville and lives in Delray.

CHRIS WOODRUFF: Thank you.

CHRIS WOODRUFF: To be honest with you, I didn't even pay any attention to how hot it was. I didn't know. Where I live, this heat, this is really not hot. So it didn't have any bearing on me one way or the other. Didn't pay attention to that. But just like I said, I was mentally trying to focus point by point, so I was just trying to stay really calm.

CHRIS WOODRUFF: That's when I start letting her take care of things. She just says, "Let me take care of it and you just take care of your tennis." So...