WIMBLEDON

July 3, 2000

Lindsay Davenport

MODERATOR: Good afternoon, everyone. Lindsay.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: I think sometimes when you know you're playing a good returner, sometimes you know deep down you've got to serve better. I felt a lot better on my serve. Only got broken the one time. Also I hit the ball a lot better. From the beginning, I felt like I was getting a lot more depth and power, felt like this was it, best match I played in months. That was a good thing to have it turn around. Like I said, sometimes it all revolves around the serve. If you're making first serves, feeling good, feel like you win some points, you feel more confident to go for your groundstrokes. That was probably the key to everything turning around.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: It's funny looking at the draw. There's some spots where I think some of us would rather be in maybe, and then some spots of the draw that are just unbelievably tough. That's just the way tournaments work out. I think Martina has her work cut out for her tomorrow, and I have mine definitely cut out tomorrow. It's fun. I mean, that's what you want to happen. You want good match-ups, you want good rivalries that develop when the top prayers play each other more. It's not too hard coming back tomorrow. So far most of the matches have been two sets, easy. Looks like everyone will be ready to go tomorrow.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: It's hard with the different surfaces. Sometimes that takes a different element to the whole match. That was a fast court in Australia, but it's easier to run down balls on hard court. When you're reaching for balls, easier to get them back on a hard court than grass court. A few times when I had her on the run in Australia, she made unbelievable shots on the run. On grass, it helps a ball a little bit out of the way so you can't get it. I think the first set was similar. The second set, I got off to a great start after the short rain delay. Tough to come back on grass from 5-Love down.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: I think so. It seems like I have my best results against the harder-hitting players, have a pretty good winning record against players. I like my chances on trying to outhit players, trying not to let other players get set up for shots. Yeah, it was good to get used to someone who hits hard, especially with tomorrow's match coming up. Monica hits just as hard, probably serves a lot better. It's going to be a little bit more difficult to break serve tomorrow. But, you know, if I hit my groundstrokes as well as I did today, and serve well, that's when I'm going to have a great chance.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Yeah, it was raining.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Really? It was definitely drizzling or spitting. It's a tough call. They don't want the grass to get too wet. There were some drops coming down, not hard, but there were drops.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: I went in the city in the morning to do a TV show, then came back here, hit, ended right before the rain came, took a nap, went to dinner, went to sleep. That was it.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Well, I like to keep playing. I wouldn't want to not play. Especially I felt I was getting better and better, I thought maybe taking a day off would take a step back. No harm in hitting. I hit an hour and 20 minutes. That's not going to kill me. I think it helped me a lot. I think it's a good idea to have a day off. The thing is sometimes you get in trouble when the rain gets bad, the weather turns. It's nice. It's funny to walk around the grounds with no one here.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: I think that's a big concern. She looks like she's moving a step faster than she did, let's say, a year ago. Her serve, I mean, she has a lot of pace going on her serve, trying to get it more accurate. On grass, that's tough to get back, especially a lefty serve. I played her earlier this year, but it was right when she came back from the six months off with her stress fracture. I practised with her here last week. She was hitting the ball great. I know she's playing at a much higher level than she has been probably the last few finals I played her. For me, I'm going to try to use some angles, use the angles of the court to get her off the court, try to get her to reach with her two hands. It's tough when the ball is coming very hard and very deep. Got to try and serve well, you know, try and get the balls earlier.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Yeah, I don't know, today. I don't know what it is. But I feel okay. A little congested.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: I think so. You know, there were some match-ups in the draw that you found some players in the Round of 16 that you probably wouldn't have bet on when the tournament started. Then you had some matches where, you know, today I played really well. I saw bits and pieces of Monica and Sanchez. Looked like Monica was playing well, they had a competitive match. Obviously Martina played well against Huber. I didn't see the other matches. The ones I saw, the top players, it was a good day for them.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: It's tough. Obviously from hitting a lot of first serves, I'm probably holding serve easily, lets me hit my groundstrokes better. You know, sometimes without playing a ton of matches, you're just not ready for balls to come back as fast as they do. Sometimes in practise you just serve and don't necessarily play points out. It's tough sometimes to get ready for returns to come back so hard at you. The second serve is definitely something that I always have to work on, you know, work on getting it a little bit farther out of the courts instead of down the middle, especially to good returners. That's the name of the game. I've got to hit a lot of first serves in. If I'm hitting second serves, I've got to be placing them a little bit better than I have been here. But hopefully tomorrow I won't be hitting too many second serves, or else it will be a long day.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: I think so. I mean, the Wimbledon crowd is the most polite tennis crowd in every Grand Slam we play in. They always seem, except maybe when Tim Henman is playing, always seem to be very mild mannered in terms of never going overboard or cheering for one player. I've always enjoyed playing here. I think sometimes it depends who you play. I think they're very knowledgeable of tennis.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Yeah. I mean, it's tough. I always thought they were pretty -- they don't take sides too much. Even last year when I played Graf in the final, I didn't think it was overwhelmingly against me.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Really?

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: No, I didn't notice.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: No.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Oh, gee. Hopefully I still have a few more years to create it. You know, I'm in a roll right now that I'm very happy with. Whether I create a lot of fanfare or not, I'm very happy with how I was able to turn my tennis career around and still manage to maintain a real sense of normalcy about everything that I do. If there's not a huge legacy that follows me, that will be okay, too. Like I say, I've got a few more years. We have a lot of players that create a lot of attention and a lot of charisma, have a lot of fan following for the whole tour. That's great. For me, I just can go around a little bit more quietly and have some fans that appreciate who I am. We'll see at the end of another few years what people are saying about me then.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Well, I think they're a lot easier on the women than the men sometimes. I think you always get the person like, "Gee, that was terrible. Can't you make them in?" For the most part, in New York, if it's not a great match, they sort of tune you out and start talking anyways. If it's a good match, there's no better place to play in the world. They're not exactly, you know, maybe there for the tennis. They're more for the scene. That's what I find a lot of times.