VOLVO MONTE-CARLO OPEN

April 19, 1994

Guy Forget

GUY FORGET: I was a bit tense in the beginning. I was afraid to put the ball outside of the court. I had the strangest feelings and also the court was very big. It was a long time since I haven't played on a court like that. In the second set, I was able to be more relaxed and to play longer shots and to serve a little bit better. I started hitting pleasant shots and there were positive things. Now I need to play many other matches like this one to feel better physically and to play more relaxed. Now, what I can draw from this match is that, of course, after a match, you always say that you could have done better, but also what could have had happened is that I could have missed completely, the match, which didn't happen, so there are positive things, but there is still a lot of work to do.

GUY FORGET: Well, on some runs, physically I was not 100%. And some type of runs I didn't do when I was training. I had to do them today. Now, I know I can be more powerful with my legs. I can be more rapid. I could have a faster response. So I didn't have any pain - maybe a bit of fear of having pain, but this is normal. Now, the good thing about this tournament of Monte Carlo is that it is on clay. Today it was very humid, so the court was very soft, and this was an ideal situation for starting again.

GUY FORGET: No, I still remembered how to make my bag and I brought many rackets. The most difficult thing was in fact to approach the points themselves; to try not to get out of the match and to play point after point and to do the maximum I could each time. Sometimes I was playing a point at 30-All, as I did at Love-30, for example. And sometimes I was even forgetting the score. And sometimes you have to play a certain type of point in certain circumstances. When I will be more relaxed, I will be more confident, I will be able to do that. In that situation, you can see what the opponent does, and you can play according to his weaknesses and everything. But today I was playing, just because of myself, I was thinking about what I had to do; when I had to start, so it was not very spontaneous.

GUY FORGET: Well, as I said, I need to play many matches. I am going to play Madrid, singles and doubles if I can, and also the other tournaments. So that for the French Open, I will be able to play performant tennis. I have the feeling - like a car, if you have the brakes on - and I am not relaxed enough and my shots are a bit detained, so I need many matches because it is only that way that that feeling of having the brakes on will go away. I have to serve a lot because it is an important shot for me. So, for the future, there are positive things, but I am like a climber, a mountain climber, who just went through the valley. I am just underneath of the mountain now. I have all the equipment; my bag and everything, but I have to climb the mountain, which is the most difficult thing. I have no ranking, no confidence, no reference points, so I hope that in the following weeks I will be able to take off a little bit.

GUY FORGET: When the draw was done, there was a positive point in playing against Michael. It was that he wasn't going to wear me out physically from the baseline. He was not going to take advantage of my physical weakness, so to speak. The rallies would be short, and he would make some mistakes. Therefore, tactically it was not a very difficult match. But I would have preferred to have a player playing like Michael, but being No. 50 in the world instead. Of course, the mistakes he made were compensated by aces and very good shots, which justify his ranking. I imagined he would play the way he played. As far as I am concerned, I didn't know exactly how it would be. Of course, in normal circumstances I could have been able to do a lot better, but given what happened during the past month, I didn't know what would happen.

GUY FORGET: Well, with Lacoste - not to mention them- we are working on a new model which should be more performant. We will developing the model. We are testing it. This is why I have a slightly different racket. But we are still making tests. I didn't choose a precise model yet. I would like to have a faster racket and if it doesn't work, well, I will take my older racket like all players do.

GUY FORGET: Yes, he is going to come to Madrid with me. We have been working two weeks together; plus this week, so it will be a month. In fact, we are working very well as always with him any way. It is a very meticulous work given what I was able to produce during training we went improving and the crescendo and he pushed me to play this tournament and-- but of course, personally I have still a lot of work to do, so we are going to keep on working. And after we will see who will be available at the Federation. I don't know what type of job George will have at the Federation, so I might have to train with someone else. But I know the type of work I have to do and I am very pleased to work with him.