GREAT AMERICAN INSURANCE ATP CHAMPIONSHIP

August 12, 1998

Andre Agassi

ANDRE AGASSI: Missed a backhand and it goes wide, and I just made a few errors serve back tried to get my serve back but, you know, he just stayed solid there on in and I made some errors.

ANDRE AGASSI: No, not really. You know, I played him three times before and I know how well he hits the ball and I think he came out. He didn't miss much early. He played real well to start. But then I managed to get my game together, felt like I was breaking him down. The first game of the third was a crucial game. I had a break point. Went back up the line a little bit early. But nevertheless, the game, it really boiled down to me serving and just didn't deliver. The tiebreaker, anything can happen and I really played not a good breaker.

ANDRE AGASSI: Yeah, I would say it's not too often you can lose control of a match so quickly so decisively and regain it so decisively only to find yourself in a battle. But 6-0 is never a comfortable set. I never like winning 6-0. It doesn't make any sense. And he stepped it up. The first game of the third was crucial for him. He looked like he was getting a little frustrated but then he managed to re-group after he held through.

ANDRE AGASSI: Yeah, I'm certainly going to take all the good from it that I can, as far as the next few days. But it never feels good to lose especially when it felt like I should have won. But it could be. Yeah, it could be. I'm not disappointed in my game. I felt like a played pretty well, just didn't put the match away.

ANDRE AGASSI: He's playing better. He's hitting his shots, I think, very decisively. I think the best part of his game is when it is in his pocket, he hits it very effectively and he -- he's striking the ball real clean and he's really taking offense with it, which is what he needs to do because he doesn't move great. But then he played like I expected him to. It's no surprise to me. A lot of people underestimate him but I think the players know he plays well.

ANDRE AGASSI: No, you can't compare. It's worlds apart.

ANDRE AGASSI: I didn't feel like I served all that great this week. You know, my game is really built around the first-serve, first-shot and I felt like I wasn't serving as well as I could and getting offense in the point. Lost my serve too many times this week.

ANDRE AGASSI: What do you think an journeyman is?

ANDRE AGASSI: In tennis, specifically.

ANDRE AGASSI: So Vince's been on the Tour for six years and never broke the Top 50. I'm not giving my opinion when I call him a journeyman. Jones Bjorkman was a journeyman before he broke through. Greg Rusedski was a journeyman. They played five, six years on the Tour and they weren't doing -- weren't having great results. And then all of a sudden it's possible to change. But "journeyman" is not an insult. I don't know why everybody's so offended at the word "journeyman". There's a lot of the guys that would like to be considered journeyman. There's 50 people in the world better than you. That's still pretty good. But you can't say that being a journeyman is an opinion. It's a matter of fact. There's no opinion about it. It's not meant to speak for his potential. It's meant to speak for his results.