CHASE CHAMPIONSHIPS OF THE WTA TOUR

November 17, 1999

Lindsay Davenport

Q. How is your leg?

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Oh, it's sore. I first hurt it in Philly in the singles final a couple days ago, and played doubles last night and it was pretty sore; and it was sore today. But what can you do? It's the end of the year. You know, you hate when you hear people say, like, "Oh, I'm dying." I'm not dying. But it's tough to play, especially when something happens, like I have to change directions or stuff like that. It's kind of -- sometimes a sharp pain, but, you know, try and get through it, and now I have 48 hours to my next singles match so hopefully it gets better by then.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Yeah, I pulled the hamstring, like I said, Sunday in Philadelphia. A couple days -- it hasn't gotten too much better yet, but hopefully it speeds up tomorrow, the recovery process.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Yeah, I was -- you know, you're a little tentative on some shots. A few balls that I ran for would hurt. As funny as it sounds, I mean, the more I played, the more I got used to it. I was a little bit upset towards the end of the first set, thinking, I was really upset; this is how my year was going to end. I called the trainer out at 1-Love in the second set, and basically just asked, "Is there anything more we can do, what have you done?" And she says, "Well, we can tape down to your knee." And I said, "Well, I don't think I want that. Is there anything else we can do right now to get it better?" And she goes no. That's what kind of turned me around figuring this is what I'm going to have to play this with; this is what I'm going to have to do, and I did. I just got used to it I guess.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: I don't know, I've never retired, and I think this is like the second time in my career I've called a trainer out. I never like to do anything with injuries. I don't know, if it would have gotten a lot worse, I'm sure I would have stopped. I don't like to do that. And it's tough. You hate to hear a player going, oh, she's hurt and complaining. I'm trying not to do that. But she played -- she did play great the first set. She served unbelievable and was hitting winners, and then she started missing a lot of those shots she was making, and, you know, slowly I started to make a few more shots. And, you know, the second set was only one break, and the one break I got she was serving 40-Love; so that was a little lucky to win the second set. The third set, I just got off to a good lead.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: At 1-Love in the second, I just said, "Well, this is the way it's going to be, I guess." I just wanted to see if there was anything else I could do. The trainer said no. It's been a hard year. A lot of injuries with my wrist. I think I've finally, hopefully coming back from that, winning last week, when, you know, I didn't hit a ball in over three and a half weeks, and then this happens. And that's probably why, because I didn't -- I couldn't play. But I just didn't want to it to end. It's sad when anyone gets injured. I felt really bad for Serena yesterday. It's tough.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: I first lost to her in Australia, and the next two times I beat her pretty easily. Tonight, she played a lot better than those two times. But I think, you know, the first set she played great, I thought, and she just started to make a few more errors. And I think what really helped me is her serve. She stopped making as many first serves; so that gave me a chance to get into the rally because I was having a hard time returning her first serve. She's so talented. Once I started holding my first serve and getting a little bit more confidence and serving better, then I think I took her out of the match a little bit.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Oh, yeah. After a match, you know I did most of the my treatment all day today. I've just been icing it and a little stim -- I don't know the correct language. But yeah, the rest of the night is pretty much just icing it down, I think.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: It's so tough to play singles and doubles a lot, but my partner is one of my really good friends. It's her first time here. She's getting married in a few days; so I don't want to quit on her now. I'm going to try to play the doubles tomorrow night and singles again Friday night and hopefully, like I said, it gets better.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: I was getting a lot of treatment for my leg.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: I haven't looked ahead too far to the 2000 season. Just looking really forward to Sunday when the season is over. But my partner, like I said, my doubles partner is getting married next weekend in Florida; so I'm going to go home to California for Thanksgiving and go to Florida and go to the Bahamas for about 10 days for vacation and come back to California and think about the year 2000. But it's a little ways off.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: No. I just want to get through this tournament. I'm sure at the first week of December, I'll sit down with my coach and kind of go over things when I want to accomplish, what I want to do in the next month, and hopefully go from there.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: She actually got engaged in January of last year, and we became really a lot closer right when we started playing doubles around July; so she had already picked the wedding. A lot of players are: Mary Joe is in the wedding, Monica, Lisa Raymond, a lot of us are going down; so it should be a lot of fun.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: For my wedding? It's a couple years off, still. There's a big, like, part of that that's not there in my life yet. (Laughs). But it will be fun. It's one of my first friends to get married. I'm only 23; so not too many of my friends will have gotten married yet.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Playing Anke, I think, indoors is probably the roughest place to play her. I think that's her favorite surface. It's going to be difficult because she returns very, very well. So I'm -- my game plan is -- the past was Anke so try and put a lot of pressure on her serve because she can start doublefaulting when she feels some pressure on that; so try to go for my return game a lot and try to concentrate on serving well, because like I said, she returns so well. But it's going to be a little -- it's going to be difficult because she hits a lot of balls; takes some balls early and hits them back hard. If my leg is in good shape by then, I hope to outhit her. And if not, I'll think of something else, I guess.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Not surprised. I think Anke is a very good player. No, I wasn't surprised. I mean, 1-1 or 1-2 is a little easy, but I thought she had a good chance to win the match. I didn't know what the score was going to be.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: The wrist has been the same problem throughout the beginning of the year. I missed a few tournaments for that, about five weeks and again in Germany this year. I missed last month before Philadelphia; so that's the same one. The leg, I think, is just a result of not being able to, you know, train and practice a lot, and running for a lot balls. And all of the sudden, I go to Philly to test my wrist out. I ended up winning; I played great; played a lot of matches. But I don't think the other part of my body was ready for that. Like I like I said, I think I have a couple days now until hopefully it gets better.