U.S. OPEN

August 30, 1996

Scott Draper

SCOTT DRAPER: Yeah. I mean, I didn't break serve once in the match, but I had a couple breakpoint chances. Struggling on second serve, gets the ball up so high. Couldn't capitalize on my chances. Didn't serve as well. He puts pressure on you all the time. He serves so big, you feel pressure when you're serving on your own because you're struggling every game. One thing I think is important is to be able to serve nearly as well as he does so he feels pressure on holding his own serve as well.

SCOTT DRAPER: I do.

SCOTT DRAPER: Some days.

SCOTT DRAPER: That's forgotten. That was my first US Open. I made the third round, played on the grandstand court. I struggled. That's forgotten. I'm looking ahead. I wasn't thinking of that today, I just wanted to win the match. Unfortunately I didn't play as good as I'd like. He doesn't make you get into much of a rhythm on your returns. You have to keep holding your serve or you're going to be struggling. That's what happened.

SCOTT DRAPER: Well, there were several times. One time there was a bit of a glare up on the court, had to put a towel over something. He was complaining about calls, I suppose. I don't know.

SCOTT DRAPER: Believe it or not, I haven't played Mark since I was, you know, probably 18. I haven't practiced with him yet. First time I played Goran. Probably the biggest servers is Rossett and Sampras. . I prefer his first serve. If I can get a racquet on his first, it's not so hard. His second serve gets up probably a foot above my head, and it's tough.

SCOTT DRAPER: No. I don't try and guess, no. I don't think it's going to do much good because when he does hit an ace, pretty close to the line. Speed he serves, pretty tough no matter what you do. I'm trying my best to get the racquet to the ball. Unfortunately I didn't do enough of that.

SCOTT DRAPER: It's frustrating. I realize I have to improve my serve. My percentage of serve isn't good enough. A few areas I've got to work on. I've only been on the Tour a year and a half. It's disappointing, but those guys have been around for many years, they're established players, and I'm not.

SCOTT DRAPER: Yeah. I mean, except for Goran's serve, I feel like I can match it in a lot of areas. I lost three serves in the match. It was four sets. You know, that's the difference. I can match it off the ground. Unfortunately he just serves so big. Against Goran, I just want to go out and play, keep him out there as long as I can. Never know what's going to happen. He can get off the boil. I was hoping for that. I had a Love-40 game. It's like you get nervous when you get a breakpoint. Here is a second serve, my opportunity, instead of realizing it, you get a bit tense, shanked a few balls. Makes it frustrating.

SCOTT DRAPER: Think my serve is a big thing. Not getting enough free points. If I serve better, I can use my net game a little bit better. Today I just didn't have much rhythm, going for a lot of three-quarter serves, better than hitting a lot of seconds. That's the way it was.

SCOTT DRAPER: I played okay. Just my second serve return, I was just missing too many second serves and I just didn't probably serve as well on a couple of games. I think I could probably, you know, come to the net a little more as well. Certainly areas you look back at a match, someone might have taped it at home, have a sit down and look at it.

SCOTT DRAPER: Yeah, I mean, I certainly sensed that he was upset with a few calls. Goran's past record here isn't so good. That's one thing that makes me feel if I can keep him heady long enough, he might crack. It was pretty good. By his expression when he won the match, he clinched to his coach. Might have something to prove here. To not lose serve in a match, either it says not too much about my returns or he's got a great serve, so.

SCOTT DRAPER: I was there.

SCOTT DRAPER: No. I mean, with the guys at the Australian Open, there's no known way they're going to go their own way. We want that event really badly. We do everything we can to make the players happy, because it's so far to come at that time of year. I think if they sense we may lose a tournament because the players aren't going to come, they'll do anything anyone wants. However they want to seed the players, the ITF, the Grand Slams, the ATP, whoever is involved, they're going to abide by those rules, I'd say. Is that what you were asking?

SCOTT DRAPER: I mean, I just think from a public point of view in tennis, it's important that the public knows which ranking system or which routine they want to follow. If there's different ITP, ATP doing different things, it's going to have a huge contrast. The public are not going to know what's going on, hurt tennis. I think they're trying to do the best for the game. I don't know the inside story. I think everyone's trying to do the right thing.