PILOT PEN TENNIS

August 21, 2003

Lindsay Davenport

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Yeah, I felt like I started off the match really well, which I thought was important. You know, I was so close in the beginning of the second set to getting an early break and didn't quite do it, I thought she started serving a little bit better. I started struggling a little bit more with the return, and let her back in the match a little bit. But, fortunately, I thought I served really well, you know, was able to hold serve relatively comfortably the whole match. You know, just waited till I finally got the break there at the end.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: It helps when you haven't been broken the whole match. I really didn't feel that much pressure on her return. I thought I was serving well. But a lot of times she was just floating the returns back so I felt pretty confident there. It was more a pressure to get that break. Just wanted to get one break so badly in the second set, just kind of waited around until 5-All till I was able to get it.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Well, it wasn't necessarily concentration, but, you know, the first game of the second set, I started off a long game and I had maybe a couple breakpoints. She got out of a jam and I maybe made a few errors, and all of a sudden it gets to be a lot closer of a match. It would have been nice to have gotten up early again in the second set. But, you know, I still played pretty solid all the way through. With the exception of just struggling with a lefty serve, I thought I did everything pretty well.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Not necessarily worried. You know, you'd always like to be serving first in the second set. But, you know, like I said, I always felt pretty comfortable serving and being able to hold. So never really got -- maybe if I would have been down a break or something, I would have been a little bit more worried.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Yeah, I've always had tough matches with her. I think we've had a pretty even record, lost to her earlier this year on clay. But she's a very difficult opponent. I mean, she's very quick and athletic. She hits the ball very hard off both sides. And, you know, she runs down a lot of balls. And at the same time I think her forehand is a very big weapon for her. She likes to run around it a lot. I don't know. It's an opponent I've always had close matches with for whatever reason.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: No. I mean, I prefer not to have the longest matches here (laughter). I'm kind of happy with the way the matches have been going. I know I'm going to have a real tough match tomorrow. It's great. This is exactly, you know, the kind of tennis I need to play. I mean, she's a great baseliner, a lot of strong rallies from her, I know she's been playing well this summer, taken a lot of the top players to three sets. I'm going to have to play well.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Feels great so far.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: No. I'm happy to finally be playing a day match in the heat. It's kind of why we come to the East Coast so early, is to get used to this weather for this tournament and for The Open. You know, I played two night matches here, but I've been practicing all week during the day. So hopefully it won't be an issue. But I know it's been really hot. It will be my first match in kind of the, you know, high humidity on the East Coast, so hopefully I'll be okay.