U.S. OPEN

August 28, 1996

Wayne Ferreira

WAYNE FERREIRA: I knew he'd be difficult, yeah.

WAYNE FERREIRA: I don't remember the last time I played him. It's been at least four or five years.

WAYNE FERREIRA: He was a little bit older than me, different age group. I didn't play against him that much. We've played.

WAYNE FERREIRA: Probably right. I don't remember when was the last.

WAYNE FERREIRA: Probably not, no.

WAYNE FERREIRA: No.

WAYNE FERREIRA: No, no. I think when we were younger, he would have won probably every time.

WAYNE FERREIRA: Yeah.

WAYNE FERREIRA: Well, I think he played very good. I think he played well enough to win. I don't think I played that well. I found it a little bit difficult. You know, a credit to him. He did what was necessary to win it.

WAYNE FERREIRA: I definitely can't lie. I felt like I've been playing tennis every day for the last five months. That's how I felt today. It was very difficult to get motivated to play mentally. When that doesn't happen, your physical side kind of disappears. It was a very difficult day for me.

WAYNE FERREIRA: It's hard to say. Right from the start mentally I was very, very soft, whatever you want to call it. I wasn't mentally tough at all. I don't know if it was because of him. I think pretty much it would have been against anybody.

WAYNE FERREIRA: It took a while; not very long.

WAYNE FERREIRA: Not really. I think he hit his forehand very well. I know he has a good forehand. I expected him to miss a little bit more, which he didn't. But he played pretty much the way I've always known him to play.

WAYNE FERREIRA: Yeah. As I said, he was in an age group above me. He was a lot better than me when I was a junior. I played against him a couple times, but not really that often.

WAYNE FERREIRA: I mean, I played great tennis last week. I knew it would be tough to get motivated from the physical side as well. I played great. I was hitting the ball well. I just felt if I could be fit enough and be able to get motivated for the matches, I should do all right. But it was pretty difficult.

WAYNE FERREIRA: I mean, it's tough. I played a lot of matches this last couple of months. I'm motivated in a sense, but my mind's a little bit slower today. When it's like that, I want to get to where I'm going, but my body just doesn't want to go there. Just played maybe a little bit too much.

WAYNE FERREIRA: Possibly, yeah. I would say so.

WAYNE FERREIRA: Yeah.

WAYNE FERREIRA: That's very possible (Laughter).

WAYNE FERREIRA: Well, I think this summer was very tough because of the Olympics. With these designations and stuff you have to do, I pulled out of Washington last year through injury, was forced to play it this year. I was forced to enter my designations to play Cincinnati, to play New Haven, to play Toronto. Basically I didn't have to play the Olympics, but who would not? I was forced to play eight, nine weeks in a row. I don't think I would have done it, but I didn't really have too many choices.

WAYNE FERREIRA: Yes. I'm going to get that done on Friday.

WAYNE FERREIRA: Only one at this stage. It's just the one that's giving me troubles.

WAYNE FERREIRA: My right knee.

WAYNE FERREIRA: Yeah. I have a tear in the meniscus.

WAYNE FERREIRA: Hard to say. I would say they say roughly between two and three weeks.

WAYNE FERREIRA: My wrist?

WAYNE FERREIRA: Fine. I never had a problem with the wrist.

WAYNE FERREIRA: No, that's not a problem.

WAYNE FERREIRA: Friday.

WAYNE FERREIRA: I'm busy scheduling it now. Obviously I didn't expect to finish this quickly. In a way, it is good because now I can maybe get it done, be ready for the first tournament that I was supposed to play anyway. We'll see if I can get it done. The sooner, the better.

WAYNE FERREIRA: Here.

WAYNE FERREIRA: It's surprising. I mean, he's a good player. I mean, obviously he doesn't really have too much, though. Not really much power in his game, nothing that really dominates. I think he hit his forehand very well today, which I don't think he does that well. Besides that, there's nothing really that exceptional in his game. He doesn't serve very well, doesn't volley very well. He's a work horse, you know. He runs around a lot, chases a lot of balls. He's very quick, tries to keep it going. He's solid from the baseline, but I know he has a lot of bad days, too, that he can lose to anybody on certain days. I honestly think he played a very good game today.

WAYNE FERREIRA: The way I was feeling, probably not.

WAYNE FERREIRA: It's my responsibility, I guess. I had such a good week last week that I think it was more important for me -- obviously I wanted to do well here and I was going to come and give it my best effort, try as hard as I could, which I felt I did. Me winning last week's tournament was something that I've always wanted to do. If I was too tired to come here, lost first round, I'd still be happy because of my efforts last week. I'm not unhappy. I don't want to lose, but I really couldn't in a sense expect to do as well as I wanted to.

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