WIMBLEDON

July 3, 2003

Jonas Bjorkman

JONAS BJORKMAN: I don't think -- I don't see the match like that. I came in with some good hopes, and sort of good feeling, been playing well. I went out and made a horrendous performance. And that obviously helps Andy. He started off well, and then he saw that I didn't play well. That sort of gives you an easier way to sort of play better than it looked like. So I think it's a very sort of balance between someone playing bad, someone playing good. He played good, but I think if he would have played me in a situation where I played better, I would, I mean, managing to hold up a lot better.

JONAS BJORKMAN: No idea. I been -- I been looking forward to the match and I just came out and wasn't used to the court and the conditions. You know, I didn't have a good rhythm out there. I was struggle to find it, and was one of those days. But I didn't come up with a good performance at the same time when he played well.

JONAS BJORKMAN: Yeah, I think Andy is about the same like Philippoussis, Wayne Arthurs. Yeah, I think even Pete is probably the best one out there, when he -- at his best, it was always, you know, really, really hard to play Pete. So, yeah, it is -- it's a bunch of guys out there who has a good, hard serve.

JONAS BJORKMAN: Yeah, last year.

JONAS BJORKMAN: No, I was taking it early. The speed is not a danger as sort of like -- I have no threat that it comes hard at you, because if you just can manage to read the serve and hit it, then you're gonna manage to get good speed back. So that's not anything why I should change. That's the game I played for through my career, to take the ball early. So that's how I return.

JONAS BJORKMAN: I didn't have a good rhythm, but I think it would have helped if I would have hold my serve to 3-2 to get me going, get me into the match a little bit. At that time, I had a few chances, but he came up with some brilliant shots and managed to, again, sort of be ahead. And from that on, I never really got back into the game.

JONAS BJORKMAN: No (smiling).

JONAS BJORKMAN: Well, it's one year back, so it's obviously a big change. But I'm not sure if Brad managed to put so much work into the change. I think Andy is a great player, has been a great player. So it's not a big surprise that he actually plays well right now. So I wouldn't say -- I would give -- not that I have nothing against Brad, but I would try to put the credit to Andy, that he managed to step up and play some good tennis at this time. I think it's tough for a coach to do too much, I think they started just before Queen's. I normally don't think that it can affect too much, but maybe sort of something behind the scenes that Brad could help out with, with the experience of being around, playing and being coaching as well.

JONAS BJORKMAN: At the moment, no (laughter). If you come back beginning of next week, I probably could be more into find a way of questions like that. But right now, I'm quite disappointed of the loss I had, and I have not too many thoughts about that.

JONAS BJORKMAN: Yeah, any time. You come to Bastad next week, I'll be glad to help you out.