TENNIS MASTERS SERIES - ROMA

May 8, 2002

Gustavo Kuerten

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

GUSTAVO KUERTEN: Well, I think I played my worst game of the match just my first game of serve in the third. And was maybe the crucial game for me in the match and probably the only game I played really bad. But is already enough, you know, especially the way I'm playing right now. Is not, you know, like before that I could give the guy a little chances and come back and when I start to play well I could be back in the match any moment. So I still have to work a few things, and I know I can get much better than the way I'm playing right now. But it's okay. I'm feeling -- every week I'm feeling a little bit better in my shots, in my physical conditions too. So it's a part of the -- of my career that I have to be patient and just wait to the time come that I'll be back in my best form.

GUSTAVO KUERTEN: Well, I think it's nothing specifically. I just got to work in a row. And maybe the key, it's gonna be my patient and - I don't know how to say - perseverance. You know, I have to be there every day doing the same thing, and again and again and again. And wait for maybe a streak wins, win a couple matches, get little breaks. Today he hit the net 20 times maybe and I had, you know -- didn't really got the shot when I needed. But it's like this. I could come maybe in three weeks, four weeks, in one month. But I just -- I'm sure that when the time come that I feel 100% again with all the injury that I had, I will look back and I will appreciate it, even these moments, the moment that I lose a match or that I don't play well but I still know with my head, focus to get in my best position again, and just thinking more about this than any match that I'm playing right now.

GUSTAVO KUERTEN: No, I think not at all. No way. It even would be maybe a mistake to do this and is not the way I like to do things, too. I had three wins there already. It's not that it's gonna be my last too. It's a long way to go. And maybe after these next weeks I prefer to think a longer time than just rush to get to better condition just for two weeks. I will go slowly. I will be for sure better than I am right here in this tournament and the French. And I will be enjoying to play there. For me, every week that I'm doing, you know, things, right now it's already things that I didn't expect. So for me, it's been enjoyable already so far to just be able to play a match like this.

GUSTAVO KUERTEN: Probably stay one, two more days here, then head to Hamburg. And start tomorrow, ready practice again and looking forward for the next week. It's a normal thing for me - come to the tournament, play, win or lose and, you know, wait for next chance and new expectation next week for sure. Hopefully I can get strong and get better. And that's basically what I'm gonna think from tomorrow - no, after tomorrow. Tomorrow I will relax a little bit and just take it little bit easy for myself, too.