ATP TOUR WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP

November 16, 1994

Boris Becker

BORIS BECKER: Excuse me?

BORIS BECKER: Well, you can say that, yeah.

BORIS BECKER: I don't know whether the best ever, but it was definitely one of my best matches of the year. And I have been playing Pete since 1990, and I had some good matches against him, but this was definitely one of the best of the year for me.

BORIS BECKER: You know, I obviously like indoors too, but, you know, we play -- out of 11 months we just play two, three month indoors, and I have been playing every year my four, five, six tournaments indoors, but the rest are 15 outdoor tournaments. And my game is such that I am taking many chances and I am hitting many balls very close to the line. And sometimes, outdoors, the balls are taken away with the wind and the sun. The angle is not the same, but still I am -- I won a couple of Grand Slams which in my opinion -- in my knowledge, I played outdoors. So time to time I am able to play decent tennis outdoors too.

BORIS BECKER: Yeah, that I am able to play excellent tennis for a longer period. I am playing the way I should play, in my opinion, very aggressive; always on the attack, I try to put a lot of pressure on the other guy all the time. And what is really pleasing is that I was able to do that all year long and it wasn't that all of a sudden I picked it up in Stockholm and I won this summer in America; I won a couple in the spring in Europe, so I was able to play that kind of level, more or less, throughout the whole year.

BORIS BECKER: Pete comes for the first volley very close to the net, it is sometimes easy to lob him than to pass him on the left or the right, and I had a pretty good feel in my lob today and I used it.

BORIS BECKER: Sometimes I wonder whether, you know, you follow all the matches all year long because I was really playing good tennis all year long --

BORIS BECKER: That is right, in '92 and '93 I wasn't able to play that consistent over a long period, that is right. I would say '91 was the last year where I had such a year where I was able to play against good players all year long, and I was winning a couple of times and, you know, it has been three years.

BORIS BECKER: Well, the thing is that if you don't improve each year, you are going backwards. And in order to, you know, stay with the top guys these days, I have to improve every year; I have to just get stronger, hit harder, and be quicker every year to be able to stay with the best players in the world.

BORIS BECKER: It was a different game in Stockholm; much faster there, so the points were played differently. Today you really had to play not only serving but also a lot of good volleying, a lot of good returns, some rallies from the back. And I thought I played better today.

BORIS BECKER: No. I am in good form. You have many others who haven't even played yet like Stefan Edberg. He is playing tonight, and, you know, you can never underestimate Pete Sampras. He is No. 1 for a very good reason, because he is the best of all of us, and it is always hard to play first rounds, basically, after a tournament and he won a tournament last week, but he is going to maybe have a bit more luck tomorrow and, you know, you have Goran who just barely lost to me yesterday and you have -- Andre obviously played something under an hour yesterday, so you have many players who have still lots of chances. It is too early to say that, you know, that you have a favorite or that other players are out.

BORIS BECKER: It took me awhile to get used to it. It was so noisy yesterday I was sometimes having a hard time understanding my own word and it was a hard time just trying to focus on a particular ball I was going to play. So by today's match, I already expected it to be very noisy and a lot of clapping between points and it is definitely something which makes me even more eager to play, it makes me just try just a little bit harder because they support me so much and they expect so much of me and I don't want to -- I want them to have a very good feeling when they go home at night that, I gave everything I had, and I think they had pretty nice two days.

BORIS BECKER: It is -- well, because you never -- they never know whether I win or not. It is such an open question all the time that it makes them a bit nervous, I think, and I had tournaments here in Germany where I lost early so really they want to come early in the week just to see me for sure. That is maybe why they get so excited.

BORIS BECKER: I have. My game is attacking and even though I can miss a first serve from time to time, I still should be able to attack my serves and really give the other player less time to pass me; less time to react and gives me a better angle on the volley and we have been working on that.