NEWSWEEK CHAMPIONS CUP

March 12, 1998

Jan Michael Gambill

MIKI SINGH: Jan-Michael is a 6-2, 6-4 winner this afternoon over Jim Courier. He's advanced to his first Mercedes Super 9 quarterfinal. Tomorrow he'll play Andre Agassi for the third time in about 30 days. First question.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: That's great news. I love playing him. I've gotten beat by him twice in close matches. Those are maybe the two funniest matches I've ever played. I'm excited to go out and play him again.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: Hopefully, I'll serve like I did today. I had 5-4 in the second set last time, kind of choked a little bit on my serve out there. But this time, hopefully, I'll go out and serve big. I think I clocked one of my fastest serves ever today, 139. The thing said it. I don't know if it was a mistake or not. It also said 536, and I don't think that's correct (laughter). Just go out and hit the ball hard. My game is a lot like his from the baseline, we both hit the ball hard. It will be a good battle.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I kind of learned how he plays a little bit. He likes to jerk you around the court. He is the master at that, probably the best guy ever. He hits the little angle, gets you wide, gets you running all over the court, then he pounds you away. You have to counteract the angles pretty well and got to hit the ball deep to stymie him a little bit.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I didn't qualify. I was a wildcard. But I didn't really think about it. I saw Philippoussis' name first. I knew I had as tough of an opponent as anybody. I just went out there, tried to play point by point. It's worked well so far. Got a little lucky in the first round. It was a tough match. Next two matches went great.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I'm ready for it because of the past few tournaments, I've done pretty well. This tournament is the biggest tournament I've ever done well in. It still hasn't sunk in quite yet. I'm just kind of riding the wave right now, trying to play my game the best I can.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: $58,000 (laughter). Before that, I hadn't been able to break the $10,000 mark. In the quarterfinals of most tournaments, the $300,000 purse tournaments is around $9,000 or $10,000 for getting that far.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I also played him in the quarterfinals in Sybase.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: Sybase.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: San Jose. It was certainly funny looking at the draw when I first came in, seeing his name in my quarter again, after playing him twice. I didn't really think that far ahead. I thought it would be neat to play him again. Now I'm excited about the prospect of playing him tomorrow.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I think so. If I keep playing him, he can be a great measuring stick (laughter). Play him every other tournament and see how I do.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: After the win today, I will be straight into the French Open, I think. I think I'm in the Top 100 finally. So this was a very big win for me.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: It is a very different surface. We'll see. I've got to be practicing on the clay a little bit before that. There's about three or four claycourt tournaments in the States that I'm going to play before I go over there to the French.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I'm 0-3 from last year. Not very good. I had a little bit of a rough time last year. I wasn't playing half as good as I am right now in my own mind. Mentally, I was nowhere near as tough. Hopefully it will be a different ballgame out there to me, and I'll be better able to play on the clay.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: One thing, I've added the one-handed forehand to my game. That's helped me a lot on service returns. On clay where you have to play longer points, you're running lot more, balls are slower, I'll be able to use the one-hander a little better. I'm also serving a little better. Even on clay I'm be getting some free points.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I feel like I played great today. In the first set, I think the return game, where I broke him in the last of the first set was -- kind of showed how well I was playing. I hit some huge returns off of first serves and second serves and broke him very easily to win the first set. Then I kept my head the whole time. All my service games, never had a breakpoint against me. Just served pretty well. I haven't seen the stat sheet for how high my percentage was, but I think it was pretty high.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I'll usually sign as many as it takes. You see the guys walk by. I'm still new at it. Maybe that's why, but I feel like I need to sign them. The fans are what makes the game, you know. They're here to watch us play tennis. They're here to get excited and get the atmosphere going, which I love to play in. If they want me to sign their autograph, that's what I'll do.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: Yeah. I watched the last two sets of Agassi's match. I watching Agassi because I like watching Agassi play. I've grown up watching Agassi play. I've grown up watching Jim play. It was hard to play him. I had to blank face him when he was against me there. I always watching Agassi play. I just love watching how he plays.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: Yeah, he's -- right (laughter). He's playing some good tennis. He knows how I play now. Definitely we both know each other's game I think pretty well after the last two times we've played.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I don't think there's a certain player. I think there's a few players that I modeled it after. I'd like to think that hopefully one day I'll serve a little like Sampras. I like how he serves, I like his motion, how fluid he is. That's how I modeled my serve a little bit. After him. My groundstrokes are pretty unorthodox. I don't know who hits them like me. I like to hit the ball hard, like Agassi or Connors. Hopefully my movement can someday be compared to Steffi Graf's.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: It's never fighting the whole world. I don't think they'll all be for Agassi tomorrow. I may have ten people out there for me (laughter). No, I love it. I absolutely feed off it. The more, the merrier. It's going to be a packed house tomorrow. I hope it's loud and crazy. I just love that kind of atmosphere. That's how I hope tennis evolves to. When the fans and players are having fun, it's intense, electric on the court. It's a great atmosphere to be in. This is what I've grown up wanting to do.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: Yeah.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I've been speaking to Tom Gullikson frequently. I've been recently asked to play -- I'm a hitting partner for the Davis Cup team. That will be my first experience with Tom. That will be pretty cool. He'll be coaching me down there. I'll be watching the Davis Cup team play for the first time.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I haven't spoken to Tom since this tournament. I spoke to him quite a bit in Scottsdale. He had some very encouraging things to say. Before Tom, I had worked with Nick Saviano lot at the USTA.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: No. At tournaments, when I go down there, Nick helped me a lot with my game.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: Absolutely. He's a huge name. Going out there against him, I've practiced with him quite a bit, about two years ago down here at Mission Hills, we used to have a place here. We played him quite a bit. Since two years ago, I was in awe of him, even in practice. Out there today, I think it helped me a lot that I had practiced with him before. I was not quite as shocked as much as I might have been. I always try, whoever it is, they're them, and I'm playing the ball, hopefully, not letting the person that I'm playing get in to be a factor.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: Yes. That was a great match. Felt like I couldn't have done much before.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: Actually, I like to say I'm from Spokane. I hope they are going crazy down there. Colbert, we just moved there, it's just five minutes outside of Spokane, so I still say Spokane.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: That's a good question. It's not a real big place. But we got about 700,000 in Spokane. Getting to be a pretty big city. Great city, I love living there. Colbert, pretty rural area, country. It's not more of a town, it's more of a suburb of Spokane. Our house is like five minutes outside in the country of Spokane. It's just nice. We can go and be away and then come back and we're in the city. Colbert, I guess I'm from Colbert, but --

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: No. If I've become a role model, I think that's great. I always hope that kids have somebody to look up. Sports is big. If kids play sports, then they're less likely to be doing other things that are negative. Hopefully that would be great if they're looking up to me.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I have two backhands actually (laughter). Which one, this one or this one (indicating)?

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: My backhand is pretty normal. I just grab the racquet. It's pretty much a normal backhand grip. If I was playing like a normal right-hander, this would be my backhand. I switch over and use usually a one-hander. I switch my grip to this (indicating). Actually, these two fingers aren't touching the racquet when I hold it. Don't ask me how I hit that shot. I grew up doing it. I'd never teach it to anybody.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: People do mention Tom Gorman. I have never had the chance to meet him or see him play very much. I know he was a great player. If I was compared to that, that would be an honor.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I believe I will play LA. That's the old Infiniti, now Mercedes tournament. That's at the same time as Aptos, last year. It was kind of a close-to-my-heart tournament, my first tournament win. I was thinking about going back and playing that, so we'll see.