PACIFIC LIFE OPEN

March 8, 2003

Lindsay Davenport

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Yeah, I think, you know, it's always tough the first few games to try and get off to a good start. You know, I just started off poorly that game, but was able to bounce right back into the match. Fortunately, I think I hit my groundstrokes a lot better than I did the other day, played a little bit more aggressively. But, no, you always want to start off a match, you know, with a lot of energy and on the right foot. Today ,the first game, I just felt I wasn't quite ready to begin yet.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Yeah, I mean, she's been a good friend of mine for many, many years. When we first came up on the Pro Tour together, we traveled together. We've spent a lot of time together. She is a great player who's battled a lot more injuries and a lot more ups and downs than most players have had to go through. She's come back strong each time. I think if she can just be a little more consistent she would be, you know, Top 10 all the time. I think she in goes streaks, where she plays really well and then not so well. If she can get just a little bit more consistency, I think she'd be a really strong contender to win Slams.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Well, that's the key. She's got to figure that out. I don't know.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: No, I think the French they'd probably be the most vulnerable. I think that the grass, you know, it's very hard to control their shots with the pace that they hit it, how fast grass is, how good their serves are. I think they did really well last year at the French. But I think of any surface, my feeling is they struggle a little bit more on clay than the other surfaces.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Well, no. You still have to play the tournament. I'm just saying I think they both like faster courts than the slow courts at Roland Garros.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: It can, and it cannot. I think that exciting tennis is when you have a good return, are playing a good server. Sometimes when you get two big servers playing each other on grass, you fail to see any rallies or any real points develop. It's really just serve and get an easy ball back. You know, it's real exciting, especially in men's tennis, if Lleyton plays like a Pete, someone they have a good, contrasting style to. Women's tennis, we get someone -- it's very tough to return serves that are coming, like the Williams' serve, at 110 to 120. You've got to be able to get those serves back to start the rally.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: I don't compare it to Sampras' serve. I consider it maybe his equal on the women's tour.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: You know, I don't know (laughter). You know, I feel like I have to get a little bit more confidence to enable that to happen. I feel like, you know, I'm making strides. I felt like today's match was a lot better than the other day's match. But you've just got to play well for the entire two weeks and get everything kind of going well. You can't have any lapses in a Slam. You're going to have to take out one, I think, or both of the Williams from now on to really win a Slam. They're both so consistent now.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Yeah, there's definitely other players out there that are very dangerous, but they're just not as consistent as the Williams are. So obviously you look at it as an opportunity when neither one of them are here. Almost always, at least one is playing - a big tournament especially. But you still have to go through a lot of good players still to win titles.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: I mean, it's going well. Rick is a great guy. He's known Robert a long time, and that helped out very well. I think for me naturally not having my coach of 10 years, it was a little bit harder than maybe I thought it would be, especially in the beginning. But, you know, I'm definitely getting more accustomed to him not being there. He was with me for so many years and almost every match that I've played since I turned pro. But, you know, I think things are going -- they're going well. I mean, I'm very lucky I have found a good coach in Rick - just trying to keep building things, keep trying to get better and better.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: For me, I felt like I've lost a lot of consistency on my serve. We've been trying to hit a lot of serves and kind of figure that out. I mean, my serve was a huge weapon of mine, and I felt like it hasn't been as effective this year as it has been in the past. And the same thing, just trying to move forward in matches, trying to get good depth, hard shots. I kind of feel like my game a lot of times revolves around my serve, where if I'm serving well, I get a lot of confidence. I'm just trying to get that back to where I was.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: No. I mean, he's a very laid-back, kind of easy guy. Robert was a lot tougher, even though they have similar personalities. We're working on trying to get him tougher (laughter).

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: We do. It's a little bit tricky because he's a lefty. I think that's a little bit different. You know, he's been playing mostly doubles for the last few years, you know, is 38 or 39. So it's a little bit different. It doesn't give me as much rhythm to play against a lefty as it does a righty. A lot of times we'll find right-handed players for me to play with. To have the experience of someone like Rick, to have someone who has played a lot of big matches before, helps a lot.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: We haven't really played competitive yet. We play points.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: My fitness?

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: That's because of me, and I think kind of what Robert started with me when I was on crutches. We started working out quite a bit. And now almost always I go to the gym on my own.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: I did walk away from doubles, and I did not have any interest to play in it really too much. You know, Lisa has been one of my -- if not my best friend on tour since. We both started -- we both started off playing doubles together -- when she and her long-time partner broke up, she needed a partner. I did it because she's really one of the few players that makes me laugh out on the court, and we have a great time. She's I think the best doubles player out there. It was an easy decision because I thought it would be a lot of fun, and it has been so far. Really because of that, I don't think there's anyone else that would have pulled me out of doubles retirement.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Yeah. There's a few tournaments that I won't play. But we have a solid schedule of probably about 12 of the 17 or 18 tournaments I'm playing in.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Of the what?

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Well, we're certainly in kind of a weird bind with losing our CEO again so soon. The players feel like from our standpoint we've done everything possible to get women's tennis more popular and to get it -- to keep it the elite women's sport in the world. We really feel like if we had the right leader, had the right leadership, that our sport could really just dominate most women's sports. I think the players are a little frustrated that more hasn't really happened. But we're hopeful that this next time around we'll find the right couple people to really lead us.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: I think so. I think the players feel like that.

LINDSAY DAVENPORT: I think the players have raised the level of tennis that's been played the last few years. Players are doing a lot of media. They've become much more famous now than I think players ever have been, and there's more players that are famous than before. I mean, we have both Williams who, you know, have kind of gone from just being an athlete to kind of being everywhere. Everybody knows who they are. It's not just a tennis thing. We have some other players like that. Obviously, with Kournikova, if she was back playing really well again, that would help. We just feel like from the players' standpoint, do a lot of media, get a lot of exposure, bring a lot of fans into the game, played great tennis, that we could dominate the marketplace a little more than we have been.