ATP Tour World Championship

November 26, 1998

Alex Corretja

Q. Pretty tough match. I suppose in the third set, it just began to go Tim's way. Before that, it was really anybody's match, wasn't it?

ALEX CORRETJA: Yeah. It's obvious it was a really close match, especially first two sets. We had a couple of chances, both of us, especially him when he was serving up 3-1 in the second set, then after that, I recover. Since that point, I start to play really well again. After I won the second set, unfortunately for me, I just got really relaxed. I thought he might go a little bit down. He didn't. He just kept his level. He was a better player. He kept putting pressure to me. He really play really well.

ALEX CORRETJA: Yeah, for sure. If he stays back, it's obvious normally I'm going to beat him most of the time. So every time I was playing a short ball, he was trying to come into the net. He was really successful. He was playing really good volleys. He was moving really well on the net. As well, he didn't make that many mistakes from the baseline. So it was tough. Myself, I didn't serve that well. I make a lot of mistakes with my first serve. It didn't help my game because I was the whole time under pressure, especially when I missed the first serve, then he was coming into the net the whole time.

ALEX CORRETJA: No. I was just trying to play my regular tennis, try to move him a lot, try to play deep so it doesn't let him go to the net easy. I think the worst thing I did was that I didn't return very well with his second serve, especially in the first set. So I didn't take advantage of his errors. I couldn't put a lot of pressure to him. So if I could win some of the points when he was serving with the second serve, maybe it could be better for me. At the end, it was difficult because he was serving harder and he was putting a lot of pressure. But during the first set, I think I had a couple of chances, and I didn't take it.

ALEX CORRETJA: That's the good side of this part. When you lost a match, normally you just go home. In this tournament, you still have the chance to go and to advance into the tournament. As they told me, if I can beat Albert tomorrow, maybe I can still go to the semifinals. I think we have to wait to see how the scores go. But still it's good news. If I can beat him and go to the semifinals, even if I lost today, it's always good.

ALEX CORRETJA: It's obvious that I improve my game on indoors. I'm playing with the best players in the world. I think I'm playing a good tennis. But even that is going to be tough. You have to play Albert. He never won a match indoors. Well, we have to wait to see if he won today or not. It's obvious that it's not easy. It's a strange situation. It's not going to be easy either for me because I will have the whole pressure to beat him. I will try just to play a regular match and to see what's going on in there.

ALEX CORRETJA: Right now?

ALEX CORRETJA: What did you say?

ALEX CORRETJA: But I'm not anymore.

ALEX CORRETJA: Maybe you can ask Todd Martin who is the president right now.

Well, I was trying to just be fair with everybody, try to do the good things for the Tour, try to help the kids and the supporters, spectators. That was the main reason to be there, and also to have a balance with the clay court players and with the hard court players, to try to find the good things for everybody. I don't know. I cannot tell you much.