TMS - INDIAN WELLS, WOMEN

March 18, 2000

Lindsay Davenport

WTA: Questions, please.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: It's definitely very tough to do. I think it's gotten to the point where obviously she doesn't like to play me. She said that in Australia. Like I said, the only way to beat Martina, I think, is to overpower her. I'm able to do that. I think, like I said, with a record like that, she probably gets a little frustrated playing me a little easier than she might somebody else. I've played really well against her. I mean, she definitely brings out the best in me. I get very fired up every time I play her. It's exciting, we've been playing so many times, it's only in the finals now. You get up for those. You get really excited. I think that has something to do with it. Might be different if we played maybe in the second or third or quarterfinal round.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Well, I just think she was -- I mean, I kind of figured everyone was going to say I didn't play that well. Her balls were landing very deep, a little bit higher. She's never done that against me before. The depth of her ball really forced me to go for more and make some errors. I mean, I thought it was a little bit of both, but more maybe her good play. 4-3 down, I figured I was going to have to start going for it even more, just trying to get on my toes, bounce around and see what I can do. I hit a couple of good shots to break. All of a sudden the match turned with that one break. I actually think the game 4-All to hold my serve, then after I broke, was a huge game. After that, I think the momentum just carried me along. She was pretty discouraged with what had happened.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Well, not nervous because of that. I think it was a final. Like I said, she didn't give me many free points in the first set and a half. I thought I had to do so much to win points. You know, you start off different matches different ways. In Australia I started off great. Here I started off a little flat, a little slow. Who knows why this happens. But I was able to turn it around, and then she started giving me a few easier points there in the third.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: No. I mean, obviously you know it's a long way to come, down a set and 2-4. It was only one break. I'd only been broken twice to that point. I just hadn't been returning well. Every time she was serving, I was missing about two returns, maybe three, kind of giving her her service games. I knew I needed to stop that and start playing the points a little bit better. That was a big thing, I thought: get some returns in play, start the rally off. Like I said, once I got that one break back to get even, I really felt a lot better and started moving around a little bit better, you know, trying to get the adrenaline flowing.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Well, yeah. I think my record says that. I think with Martina and myself, Martina doesn't lose very often either. I think we both have pretty great records the last few months. For sure, I mean, yeah, I think people think it's tough to beat me. I mean, I have to put Martina in that same category as myself.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: It appears that way (laughter). I don't know how she thinks about playing me. She said some things in Australia. She got quite frustrated as soon as it got back to 4-All. How I'm looking at it, it looks like she doesn't enjoy playing me.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Like I said, I just was giving her her service games really easily, missing a lot of returns, not necessarily unplayable serves, just not threatening her on her serve at all. She didn't give me a lot of second serves actually the whole match. Like I said, at 4-3, I was able to get a few more in play, play a little bit more aggressive, and that was just the whole turning point.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: I just swear, I thought I was just missing them because she wasn't serving them all that hard. They were going I think in the high 80s. I'm not exactly sure. I was just missing them. She was mixing it up pretty well, but I was just a little flat returning, I thought.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: I don't think about it in those terms. I didn't think about it three years ago. It's tough. She's obviously been the greatest player the last few years, been No. 1 most of the time. It's great. I don't think - at least I don't - about my domination against other players or my record against other players. It's a tough thing to do. Obviously, no one else can do it. I've got to be proud of that.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Yeah. It was a little bit in the doubles yesterday. My partner and I were down a set. They were serving for the match. We were down I think 5-2 in the breaker. We came back and won the third 6-1. All he really said was, "You know, sometimes you've just got to hang in there until you can turn the corner. Maybe she won't give you the opportunity to turn the corner if she's ahead. If she is, just hang with her, hang with her." It's exactly what happened today. I just kind of hung with her until I was able to just barely get on top of her. She kind of folded in a way. Winning I guess ten straight games is pretty hard to do.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: No. I mean, I'm not going to be a clay court player just with the style of my game. If I'm playing well, I'm going to do well on clay. I've won a few clay titles. I really think spending months on clay is not going to help me win Wimbledon again, the US Open, win a lot of other tournaments. I'm pretty good on clay, but I don't look forward to the clay court season (laughter). I don't like spending hours on it like I do a hard court or a different court. That's my attitude. You know, people are telling me I need to start hitting on clay like tomorrow. I just have the attitude, I'm going to go for it at the French, I'm going to have a great time. We'll see what happens.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: It's pretty funny, because I can't -- I'm pretty sure I've never played Martina on clay. I think that's probably her best surface. She grew up on clay. If I beat her on clay in any city, it would be pretty great (laughter). To beat her in Paris, it's tough. She'll be pretty fired up. She also has the opportunity to win her fourth and complete the Grand Slam there, not in the calendar year. Same as me. I'm sure she'll be looking forward to doing that as well.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Yeah, I do remember that. I did beat her in Paris, Centre Court (laughter). But she was like 15. That was like so long ago (laughter). That's right.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: I've had a mental problem playing one player, Conchita Martinez, for a number of years. It's tough when you've lost a lot of matches to one player. It's tough to figure out what you need to do differently. The other person has a lot of confidence going up against that person. A great record against her gives me a lot of confidence when I go to play her. I know I have the style of game that gives her trouble. She knows that. That's what it comes down to. Like I've said, I'm sure she will beat me again in my career. I'm sure she'll play well against me. But right now, I just seem to be on a roll when I play her. You know, obviously I've been giving her a lot of problems.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Well, I'd obviously love to. I'm not going to turn it down. Grass is tough. It's a funny surface. It's tough to come back on grass maybe like a match like today. You don't get a lot of opportunities. It was a helluva pleasure to win at Wimbledon, a great, great feat in my own mind to be able to pull it out there. I've looked forward to going back there since I won it. It's a different feeling once you're the Wimbledon Champion, at that club. If I have dominance, I don't know. I'd like to win it again in my career. I'm going to try my hardest. I have number of years to try that.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: I don't know. She just doesn't like playing me. I mean, I think she plays the same. I don't think when she plays me she plays worse than she does against Mary or one of the Williamses. I don't know. I mean, like I said, sometimes it's tough mentally to go out against a certain player that you know plays well against you. I mean, she was doing great there for a set and a half. I was able to get the break, kind of destroy her confidence, I guess.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Yeah, it's true. I just think growing up in California, not spending time on other surfaces, kind of takes its toll the first few years in the pros where you always switch surfaces. Grass, yeah, I did turn the corner. It helped a lot practicing a little bit more on it. But also it's a quick surface. That's going to help my serve, my groundstrokes. Clay has the opposite effect: it kind of slows everything down, deadens the pace of the ball. That's going to be the problem. The serves don't take off, your groundstrokes don't go through the court as much. It gives players better opportunity to get to them. But I'm going to play the same way. I'm not going to start hitting tons of topspin, hitting kick serves for first serves, running around trying to get every ball back. I'm going to play aggressive, kind of like the year Mary got to the finals of the French Open. She just went for every ball, attacked. I think that's my best shot at winning Roland Garros.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Well, I think it's a lot of fun to go out there and play doubles. I think in the earlier rounds of a tournament, you like to get out on the court instead of a practice situation, work on certain parts of your game. The men have it tough at Grand Slams. If we had to play three-out-of-five, I wouldn't play doubles at Grand Slams. It doesn't ever seem to affect me. It doesn't hurt me ever. I've always stuck with the routine of trying to play doubles.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: I don't know why they don't play week-to-week. Well, I mean, Pete has played tennis now professionally for maybe 12 years. I think once you play a number of years, you stop wanting to play matches all the time. I'm sure I'll get to that point in my career, as well. As far as the other guys, I really don't know. Kafelnikov does, but he's really the only guy. I have no idea.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: It obviously seems to be a trend lately where if someone wins a 12-and-under tournament, they turn pro, they think they're so good (laughter). It's quite remarkable, even players I've had experience with. I was always under the impression you should win the 14s, the 16s, 18s, Junior French, Junior US Open, all those, before you would even think about it. Now it just seems, like I said, you get 13- or 14-year-olds that are out of school, not playing any tournaments anymore because they're just getting ready for the pros. I think that's a very poor approach, the wrong way to do it. The most important thing is to play Juniors, learn to win, learn to lose, learn to communicate with other players your age, learn to get along, and see what happens. Not everyone is going to make it. I think probably only 98, 99 percent of people that play junior tennis, and tennis in general, are ever going to make it (sic). It seems to be a lot of pressure to do it so young.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: It can be. It can be just lack of skill, too. I've seen some girls turn pro, "Oh, my God, I don't think they'd win college matches." It's a lot of both. You've got to win before you can think about going pro. You have to win at the higher levels than just the 14s or, like I said, the 12s.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: I kind of got into tennis more towards the end of that rivalry, more like the late '80s. I don't know exactly all the ins-and-outs of that relationship. I think whenever you get two players that have clearly established themselves above the rest of the pack, like Martina and I have, being 1 and 2, really being the ones that are the most consistent performers, you're going to get comparisons. We don't play as different style of games as Chrissy and Martina did. In that term, it's a little different. But, yeah, we're 1 and 2, we've been 1 and 2 for two and a half years, three years. Hopefully it develops to where we play 20 or 30 more times in our career.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: I think that's up to you guys. Right now I'm dominating it. It might change again. Like I said, we're always meeting in the finals. That's the exciting part of the rivalry. Hopefully, like I said, we'll play many, many more times. I think in Chris and Martina, for a while, it might have been a little lopsided. It just caught back up because they played a number of times.