TMS - INDIAN WELLS

March 14, 2000

Gustavo Kuerten

GREG SHARKO: Questions for Guga.

GUSTAVO KUERTEN: Yeah, I think I had just a few hours here to practice. They put me to play very early today, it was tough to play my best tennis. As far as I can manage, I win the match. So was good at this point. Try to recover now today, maybe play better tomorrow. I think I have to improve more if I want to go far.

GUSTAVO KUERTEN: Yeah, I've been playing much better right now. I needed more rhythm. I got with some match there, win a tournament, too. That was really great. For this week, maybe I took a little risk, but also I came with a lot of confidence. Maybe this can help. With one or two more days here, if I win maybe next match, I'll be much more ready, I think, for the others.

GUSTAVO KUERTEN: It's always nice, interesting to play in Brazil. We played already four times in Florianopolis. For me, it's great. The team plays well there, too. That's more important.

GUSTAVO KUERTEN: He's a good player. He gets motivated when he play good guys, too, important match. I think in America, you have a lot of chance to play well, a lot of tournaments. I wish we could have these in Brazil, and this support, too. He's in the right place, I think, to become a good player.

GUSTAVO KUERTEN: Well, I think it's great, especially for America. They stop everything, they say, "The United States of America." I wish they could have this in Brazil, too. I think we deserve the same way they do.

GUSTAVO KUERTEN: In Brazil, you say?

GUSTAVO KUERTEN: I think in the men's, you can see some guys like sad this year, he's been playing well, Andre Sa.

GUSTAVO KUERTEN: He's 21.

GUSTAVO KUERTEN: I think the junior guys, we always have good players. Now we have Alvis (phonetic). I think maybe he's the best junior in Brazil. You never know what's going to happen.

GUSTAVO KUERTEN: Sao Paolo. You never know what's going to happen in the future. We don't have the chance like they have here in America to keep playing your own country for three, four years, try your chance. They always have to travel a lot. They don't have a Federation help. They need help. We miss a lot of good players because of this.

GUSTAVO KUERTEN: I also have to do my job. I spend a lot of hours playing, all this. I wish I could help, too. I try to help as far as I can. I'm not going to be the one that's going to change the position one year for the other.

GUSTAVO KUERTEN: Yeah, I think it's a great event. It's going to be one great week. Everybody's going to talk about tennis for all day long. This is not going to help the kids or the junior guys to start to play. It's only eight guys that's going to play in there. I'm not saying it's not important. Of course, it's nice, going to be great. I think if we had maybe one Super 9 every year, like here they can come with ten tournaments every year, it's going to be better, because you know it's going to be good guys playing one week. For sure you could come, so it's going to be tradition. It's going to be much more important than only have one tournament and it's gone, it's disappear.

GUSTAVO KUERTEN: We had a lot of tournaments in Brazil. They had a lot of chance. For me, I can only say it's a pity. I cannot do anything to build tournaments, to try to recover that time. For sure, they missed the opportunity. Right now everybody is trying to do it again, but they don't have chance. They may be paying for doing wrong.