REPUBLIC NATIONAL MONTE CARLO OPEN

April 25, 1999

Olivier Delaitre

ATP: Questions, please.

TIM HENMAN: He's got no friends, so (laughter).

OLIVIER DELAITRE: That's true. He's the only one.

TIM HENMAN: I just felt sorry for him.

OLIVIER DELAITRE: Well, no. I was supposed to play with Golmard, but we try to play with some French guy, but all the French, they team up together. So when I arrived at 11:15, I saw Tim. He said, "No, no, I don't play." I saw his coach. "Sure, he doesn't want to play. I'm going to ask him." Finally he say, "Yeah, let's play." I ask for the wildcard from Patrice, we got the wildcard.

TIM HENMAN: You don't have to sign in to get a wildcard.

OLIVIER DELAITRE: We signed, but I didn't know I got the wildcard until 12 noon because before Patrice say, "We don't know, we decide at 12." The sign-in was closed. If Patrice didn't get any wildcard for us, I couldn't sign anymore. I get the wildcard the last minute.

OLIVIER DELAITRE: He's good, this guy (laughter).

TIM HENMAN: I think we're both, yeah, very pleasantly surprised. Playing on clay, I haven't played a great deal of doubles on clay. It is different. But, you know, from the word "go" we seemed to understand each other's games well.

OLIVIER DELAITRE: I beat him at the French, so I know his game. Easy match (laughter). Respect, a little bit. It was a long time ago.

OLIVIER DELAITRE: Every time I play first time -- well, not every time, but most times, if it's the first time, I win the tournament.

TIM HENMAN: He's done it like six times.

OLIVIER DELAITRE: Six or seven maybe, yeah. Six or seven times, yeah.

OLIVIER DELAITRE: No, no (laughter).

OLIVIER DELAITRE: Hamburg. But if I don't win Hamburg, I change (laughter).

TIM HENMAN: I hope it has. I feel I've been practicing a lot away from the doubles, as well. I do feel as if I'm playing well. You know, as I said yesterday, just to be practicing in match conditions, I think it's always -- it can only be beneficial. Winning is always a good habit to be in.

OLIVIER DELAITRE: I left home on Saturday at three p.m. I got on the plane; I still didn't have a partner. I was supposed to fly to Nice but they sent the plain to Toulon. When we arrived there, we had to wait for one hour on the plane because there were too many people in the airport so we couldn't get off the plane. I was with my wife and children. We had a two-hour bus ride to the Nice airport. When we got to the Nice airport, we took an official car. We got onto the freeway, there was an accident. There was a car on fire in the tunnel. We had to wait three-quarters of an hour. We got to the hotel where we reserved two communicating rooms. They said, "I'm sorry, we don't have any communicating rooms." We took a suite. Then we went to the restaurant because we hadn't eaten yet. We were told that restaurant closed at 11 p.m. It was 11:15. On Sunday morning, when I came to the tournament, I asked for a scooter. They gave me scooter No. 13. At 11:15, I still didn't have a partner.

TIM HENMAN: On clay, I prefer the left. I struggled in Barcelona, I thought, when I played the right box. In our second match, I played left. I thought I returned much better. You know, I just feel much more comfortable on the court now. Hence, I think I was returning pretty well by the end.

OLIVIER DELAITRE: When I was young.

OLIVIER DELAITRE: Yeah. You know, he has a good game so he has to make a small change from the serve and from the spin of his baseline game. He has the shot to play on clay. He's mentally and physically strong. Edberg play well on clay, so he has quite the same game. I think he can play good. But physically you have to be very strong. After, you can do everything you want.

TIM HENMAN: I was injured.

OLIVIER DELAITRE: He was injured, yeah (laughter). My ranking was going down and down, so I didn't play so good.

TIM HENMAN: Again, I felt sorry for him (laughter). I gave him some bonus points.

TIM HENMAN: I don't know. Depends. I asked him to play in Hamburg, but I suppose it depends on Fabrice. I think Fabrice's first tournament back after injury, he should take it easy, just play singles (laughter). He doesn't want to overdo it.

OLIVIER DELAITRE: I call Fabrice yesterday, and I don't say what he said yesterday.

OLIVIER DELAITRE: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I only play most of the time doubles. If I can play good without Fabrice, it's more pressure for Fabrice when we are playing good, and he's playing singles and doubles. It's the best pressure. He's happy when I play good, yeah.

TIM HENMAN: Perhaps. I'll see. It's not right at the top of the list of my priorities, obviously. Yeah, I'll have a look around.

TIM HENMAN: Yeah, if Greg wants to play, we could. I'm not too fussed either way. I don't know whether he wanted to play this week or not.

TIM HENMAN: Yeah. As I said, I think it's benefitted me. If he could play a few more matches, then I think it would help him.