WIMBLEDON

June 30, 2003

Lindsay Davenport

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Venus has beaten me the last two times I've played here. I think the best grass court player, you know, right up there with Serena. Venus has had an extraordinary record here the last three years or so. I'm happy to reach this round. This was my goal at the beginning of the tournament. I feel like after the first round, I've played really well. I've got to go out there tomorrow and be aggressive, you know, try and put some pressure on her, you know, try and serve well mainly. You've got to be able to hold your serve with the Williams all the way through the match. It's tough to break them. I'm going to go out there and give it my best shot.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Seems like we all walked in the locker room at the same time, too. Yeah, I think the top players are playing well right now, have moved through the last few rounds. We're ready to go. I mean, everyone was just sitting there waiting, ready to go on as soon as it dried. Everyone was real eager to get out there and get it in, in case it rained again, get down to business.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Well, I think Wimbledon does a very good job at honoring former champions and great players and putting them on show courts. Today is probably the best ticket in tennis of any Grand Slam, when you have all the men's and women's Round of 16s playing today. With the women coming back again tomorrow, we've always been spread out so all of us are first on. If you'd ask any player, they'd rather be first on than third on Centre and have to wait around all day for the men. I couldn't have been happier to be able to be sitting here and be done. I could care less what court they put me on. We have a lot of players left in this draw. How you choose which matches for which court, it's pretty hard to do that. I think they've done it fair, where we're all pretty much done and starting at the same time, getting ready again to come back tomorrow for the quarterfinals.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: It just shows the Americans are still on top of the Russians (smiling). There's no question that they're great, young players coming up. What happens in a few years, who knows. I would say on this surface, the stronger -- seems like they all lost to American players today, the Americans have the upper hand on a quick surface, especially grass. There are still a lot of good players coming up. You know, I would think they would think this is not their best surface. They're very good, all of them, I think.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Well, I think I'm one of the few players that probably played her 10 times before '99, and it seemed like we always played each other. That was a time when I think she was still developing as a player, still maturing, still trying to figure out her game plan. You know, I think if you look at her record from 2000, 2001 on, she probably has a pretty good record against most players. It was, I did have the upper hand in the rivalry. With her getting better and her kind of breaking through and winning that first Grand Slam, I think it gave her all the confidence in the world to go on and beat every player, including myself. But, you know, she does a lot of things very, very well. On grass, it's very hard to combat that sometimes, with the big serve and the big return. You know, I think it was only a matter of time before she kind of developed her game and won some Slams, especially on the grass.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Well, I think we've played a lot of Grand Slams where it's happened before. I don't think it's the first time for any of the top players. But, you know, especially for myself, playing I think the girls -- the fastest serve was like 85, 88. Going tomorrow against 110, 115 is going to be a bit of a shock. Great match-ups tomorrow. I know a lot of people are looking forward to Jennifer and Serena, me playing Venus. Hopefully we're all ready to go. You want to get to this point, get the tournament going. So hopefully everybody is ready.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: I think the level will jump quite a bit tomorrow, the level of opponents. There's always those handful of floaters in the draw that can give you trouble. You know, sometimes you don't get those players. You know, it seems like the top players have gone through relatively unscathed so far.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Some suggestion?

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Some suggestion (laughter)? Yeah, I think --.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Yeah, for sure. I think just being around, you know, all the players over the years, everyone has grown up, including myself over the last couple years. Yeah, they're great. Venus and I are on the board together. We've discussed a lot of the issues that have faced our tour, you know, spent more time around each other lately, I guess.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Well, I just think, you know, you're dealing with a lot of girls and women in a lot of different ages. A lot of them come up at 15, 16, some of them are 30 to 32. I think you just kind of get to know each other over a period of time. You know, I didn't mean so much like immaturity and brattiness. But you just get to know people over time, see each other more and more. You know, you spend more time together, whether it's like Fed Cup or in locker room situations like here where only the seeds are in the women's locker room together. I don't know, it just kind of evolves, I guess.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: I think they're great. I think they've kind of changed their philosophy a little bit. They're very friendly I think to most players. I don't want to speak for all of them. I think you'll still find that Serena is probably a little bit more outgoing, a little bit more of a jokester. But Venus seems a little bit more cerebral, analytical about things. I've had to talk to them, a lot of the players, about, like I said, certain issues that face our tour. You know, everyone seems to be communicating very well about things lately.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: I'm sure. I don't know if she'd want to be an ambassador of tennis or ambassador of a different type of role. I'm sure -- I don't know her that well to say what her interests are, I'm sorry.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: We've never had dinner (laughter).

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: You guys have blown it way out of proportion (laughter). Obviously, both of us want to win. We're not having dinner together. We're not calling each other on the phone. I mean, the intensity is there. If you were going to ask me about maybe Lisa Raymond or one of my best friends, it might be a little bit different. No, this is Wimbledon quarterfinals. Going to just go out and play.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: I don't think that comes up. I don't think they're as close as everyone makes them out to be. I know they've known each other for a long time, I know they're both from Belgium. I don't think they're having dinner together, anything of that nature. I think a sister relationship is different than two players that have known each other since the Juniors.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Well, it's tough to say "most complete" because they're still kind of evolving. I was watching Sharapova like many of you so far and think she has improved by far the last few months, looks to be a real player. Whether she evolves into a complete net player? You know, it will be interesting when players have seen her play more, if they see patterns, figure out what breaks down if the match is so close, because she's so new on the tour. Kind of like what Dokic did here a few years ago. For her, I think she's got a great serve. Some of the Russians don't, that have come up. Dementieva and Myskina are great players. That's the one thing if they could develop, they would do better. Petrova is pretty good. She's been fighting some injuries and still coming up. But I would probably say Sharapova, she seems to have a good game, on top of that a good serve. That's kind of what you need these days.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: I think so. Robert Lansdorp has been talking to me about her for years and years. I haven't gotten to see her play a whole match. I'm sure we've done the same drills. She's done the same drills the last five years as I did from 9 to 14 or whatever. But there's no question, he's so technically sound on groundstrokes, very disciplined in how and where he wants us to hit the ball. But, I mean, so far she's still growing. But she seems a bit more athletic than I was at 16. Already seems to have a better serve than what I possessed at 16. We'll see where she goes.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: We'll see. I mean, some of them are the same age almost as Venus and Serena. I mean, people forget that. But they've got a lot of great players. But I think, you know, they just have to keep trying to develop certain aspects of their game. I think they'll do well. I just don't know if all of them will be trading off Slams the way, you know, Venus, Jennifer, Serena were, myself for a few years. I don't know if that will happen.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Robert Lansdorp is notorious for making you hit the same shot like a thousand times, until you get it absolutely perfect. You know, my lessons used to consist of 50 minutes of forehands and backhands, like four minutes of volleys and two minutes of serves (laughter). I'm sure that's kind of evolved over time. I'm sure he spends more time with everybody on that. But he just wants to get everything down. So you would hit, like I said, 50 running forehands until you could hit the same target 10 times in a row, eight out of 10 times, whatever it is. He's very tough on you. Cracked a lot of girls, made a lot of girls cry. Probably, you know, I heard Maria say he was the only one that can get her to work hard enough. That's certainly true. He definitely expects the most out of you. You know, you just have to kind of roll with his sense of humor at times.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Both. Very technical. He'll stop and show you a thousand times how to do it right. It's both - it's repetitive, technical and very precise. Doesn't let you get away with anything that he feels is just a little bit off.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: I think it's getting better. I think so far here I served well. The last few matches, I don't think I've been getting broken. You know, against every player, you feel different pressures about serving. I used to feel when I played Steffi that you didn't have to hit it 110 to the backhand, you could get it in there and start the point that way. A lot of different pressure when you're playing Serena or Venus, just serving to their backhand because you know it's such a weapon for them. I think my serve's, you know, just as good, if not better. I've got the placement and the power. I think it's about the certain returners you face and how you serve that particular day.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: I don't know. I wasn't at this Fed Cup. I know Jennifer has expressed not a huge desire to play Fed Cup again. I think right now it's kind of overlooked because there's so many other great players that can kind of pick up the slack. But, you know, if there are not a lot of other players, it would be more disappointing. Billie runs a tight ship. She's been tough on all of us. I told her I could play this next Fed Cup, but couldn't be there till Tuesday night because my mom is having surgery. She told me to forget it. I think she did the same to Serena. After playing 10 years, I'm not too happy either. But love her or hate her, she sticks by her guns and you kind of just go with it.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Yeah, I wanted to play. I told her I could be there Wednesday practicing. I think this would have been my 11th year playing. My mom is having surgery on Monday. I obviously wanted to be home for that. She told me, "Don't bother coming."

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: No, I wasn't there, I didn't see that part. I mean, you just get to a point where, you know, okay, I really wanted to play. I think I've supported it better than anybody the last decade of tennis. I'm just a little disappointed that I wasn't, you know, given some sort of opportunity to play after I kind of feel like I've dedicated a lot of my career to supporting Fed Cup and the USTA.