GREAT AMERICAN INSURANCE ATP CHAMPIONSHIP

August 13, 1998

Jan Michael Gambill

Q. Can you talk about that first set, what was going through your head?

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I was just worried about my serve, pretty much just trying to execute on my first serve which I was doing real well on my first set and try to make him hit some balls on his own serve. He served great and really attacked my forehand a lot. I was having trouble getting two hands on the side, especially in deuce court, and I wasn't returning very well, but he has the best serve in the world. I was kind of trying to make him play a little bit. And then the tiebreaker, I kind of froze up made kind of a few dumb errors at the start of it.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I expected, you know, pretty much to be able to go out and hold my serve like I did. And there was absolutely no reason why I can't hold my serve almost every time against him. And when I lost it in the second set he didn't really do anything special. In fact, he really didn't do anything. He hit back some deep balls and I made some stupider errors and gave him that game basically. So I can expect to hold serve and do well in my own serve and hopefully take it to tiebreaker and make him work for it, which he did the first set. Wish I would have done it in the second set. But other than that, my serve's coming back and I'm playing pretty good tennis and I was winning a lot of the ground stroke rallies. There weren't many, but I felt like I was controlling some of the ground stroke rallies. Next time maybe I'll play a little bit different, maybe a little quicker on my forehand on returns.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: No, not at all. There's nothing to be nervous about or anxious about when you're playing the No. 1 one guy in the world. There's nothing to lose. I just go out there and play the best I can and that's what I tried to do today.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: Basically how I expected. It's kind of a quick experience. He serves big; I serve big. We had short, quick points. Not a lot of ground stroke rallies. It was a pretty quick match. So this was how I expected it to be and that's how it probably will be in the future when we play.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: Well, he's certainly better than anybody I've ever played that was able to attack my forehand on the serve. It's real hard to read his serve, I try to pattern my search after him. So mine is hard to read and -- but yeah, he attacks the forehand weakness of my return pretty well. On the ground strokes, I don't think that he was really dictating the points, but on the serve he really did well. Kept aceing me. I didn't like that.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I haven't gone quite that far. I've watched it so many times that I know what it looks like. My serve resembles his a little bit. I hope he doesn't mind that. But he's got that ideal serve, and he gets a lot of hip turn into it and generates quite a bit of power from that hip trunk, and I've tried to incorporate that into my serving; gets a lot of snap from the wrist and makes it hard to read and makes it a real quick delivery.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: No way.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I was pretty young. How long has he been playing on the Tour? So however long he's been on the Tour, probably U.S. Open is when I really remember, when he won it in '90.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: He surprised me a few times. In the last time I served, he had an incredible volley and I had a good pass and he hit this knife of a backhand volley down the back end line and I couldn't believe he hit that ball. I know that forehand out of the corner is his best shot he loves going there and first I was reluctant to attack there and then I started attacking there and I won a lot of points that way. And so it's not invincible over there. But the one thing that he does really well is -- a few times surprised me when I hit a good return deep and he'd kind of flicked it with a wristy shot back and get it deep and make me run or hit a winner just to -- he's an extremely talented guy and a lot of guys can't really pull that off.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: Definitely not. No, I mean, I can't play like him. He's got the one-handed strokes from both sides. He slices a lot of balls and ships a lot of shots and he's a way better volleyer than I am. I'd like to be able to volley in the future. But I pattern my rallies after a guy like Andre Agassi. I try to hit hard from the baseline and run the guy and control the rallies and just looks a little different on two-handed both sides so.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: Oh, definitely. Andre was my hero growing up, Andre and Steffi.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: Yeah, I thought about changing the two-handed forehand and a lot of coaches have said "you need to do that" or whatever in the past. But my dad is my coach and he's always been rock solid on keeping it. And I have a lot of power and there's no reason I can't win matches with it. I've done well with it so far. The one thing we did work on is hitting the one-handed shot out of the corner and drilling them a lot so they are not quite as accessible to people, hitting over there, but the returns I need to work on still.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: It's been incredible. It's what I've always dreamed about. I've wanted to be a pro tennis player since I was nine years old. Started when I was about five or six. And it really came true this. Year and I'm in the fold of things and really making a lot of things happen and winning a lot of matches and, you know, it's been great. Get to see a lot of neat things as well. Travel around.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: All the sights in Europe and that kind of stuff. I'm a big fan of the USA in the first place, so I get to see a lot of great cities over here -- Kings Island.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: We've been there three times.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: Yeah, I guess so. I love roller coasters. But we just do dinner and that kind of stuff, whatever. You've got to get prepared or for the matches on match days. So you don't have time to do a lot of stuff. Like to see the zoo, love animals. Maybe we'll go see that. The Beast is the best roller coaster in the world that I've ever been on.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I've been on quite a few. But I guess the scariness factor of Kings Mountain is a little higher. So it's pretty fun.