TMS - THE ERICSSON OPEN

April 1, 2001

Jan Michael Gambill

THE MODERATOR: Jan-Michael will improve to 12 to third position on the ATP champions Race tomorrow by reaching his first Tennis Masters Series final. First question please.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: Actually, that wasn't deflating in the least bit. I looked at him, I said "good shot" and gave him a little clap. I was impressed. That is just good tennis. That is what I come out and hope to play myself but when the other guy good tennis as well, it is exciting. Good shot. The serve that really hurt me in that tiebreak at 2-0 when I returned that overhead that he hit and then came in missed that one down-the-line. Going down 3-0 would have been something different.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: That is true. If I had hit 6 aces in a row, I would have been in good shape too. Sometimes things don't go your way. Things have been going my way a lot. I have been playing some great tennis. I am going to come out of this week feeling great. I am not too down about losing to Andre in the final. He really did play good tennis today. I tried out there. I gave it my all, 100% the whole time. Didn't get it done, scores were a little lopsided. That is tennis. That is the way it goes sometimes. It is just, you know, it is great to be in the final.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: No, I don't think anybody in the world could have beaten him today the way he was playing. I am not going to say I am the smartest player in the world, yet I have lot to learn but I tried a few things out there. I didn't seem to -- just couldn't get things going. Some guys could have served better than me. I was having a little trouble with the sun in my eyes on one of those sides. No free points. He made a lot of returns. He played smart tennis. Andre knows how to play me better than anybody right now.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: First of all, Andre returns my serve better than anybody else, even my second serve. For the most part on my second serve, I don't have anybody coming out there and hitting winners on it. That just doesn't happen. I don't even have guys coming out there and starting to run me on my second serve. I usually have the opportunity to start the point out and start dictating the points. Andre was running me and really placing the ball well. Which is tough. He returns enough of my first serves that it makes me a little nervous and I don't have a great service day, which I didn't today, or maybe I press a little bit, because it is tough out there and it is just, you know, he does that really well. Then, in the groundstroke rallies we were having some good ones. I think I gave him quite a lot of opposition out there. I don't think the scores shows how tough those rallies were and how many opportunities I had. Just didn't unfortunately capitalize on them. But, you know, he was able to stay in those rallies. He fielded some balls that I just can't even fathom how he does it. I will hit a ball 100 or so miles-an-hour; ground strokes, it is hitting the baseline and he somehow fields it back and I am running for the next one, I am looking: How does he do that. I am actually thinking that on the rally. I am going to be running for this ball, I am thinking "goddamn it," the guy -- I just hit a great shot - against anybody else in the world, that is enough said, points over, or I am getting a short ball to put it away and I am running. I have a lot to learn from Andre.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: Well, I didn't win a lot of those rallies and I am proud of myself for the, first of all, conditioning myself mentally and physically to be able to stay in those long rallies. I think that is going to help me a lot in my upcoming events on clay. I am going to have a better shot at beating those guys on long rallies. I am not going to miss the stupid shots as much. But I didn't win enough of them. And he did start pressuring me and even on my serve I just wasn't getting enough free points out there to get it done.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I think that now looking back on it, this has been such a great two weeks. I have survived some real dire situations. Down matchpoints first round, four of them, playing the first two matches with my arm that I have actually been playing with the whole week, it is pretty painful. I am looking forward to this time off and I am very happy that I have had, you know, what it takes to get through some of these matches because it is really -- it's growing me as a player, I think. It's giving me more confidence. I wasn't going to play the first two matches. I was really debating not going out there and doing it. Getting through that is important to me. True athletes do that. The guys I look up to do that kind of thing.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I think that it was great. We had a huge crowd out there. They were awesome. They weren't -- it wasn't by no means a lopsided crowd. They were cheering for me and him. They were happy to have two Americans out there I think. That was awesome. Besides, that though it is -- really it comes down to just being another tennis match. I hope I played it the same as I do my other ones, playing the ball, really focusing on the next point, the next point, next point. I tried to do that today, but maybe Andre took that away from me a little bit today.

JAN -MICHAEL GAMBILL: It's a pretty simple injury, just a stretched nerve. I just stretched it on a serve in my -- actually the first serve of the doubles match that I played with Jonathan Stark here and that is just unfortunate. People get injured. I have been playing a lot of tennis. It is something that will go away probably in the next week of just rest. I am not going to even look at a tennis ball for the next week. But just go home and enjoy myself and relax.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: Well, I don't think so. My goals are always the same. It is really to go out in the match to do what I practice on. I let that get away from me a little bit today again. My serve failed me a little bit out there. But I will keep working on that, just go out and practice, work hard, try and devise game plans against certain guys, stick to those things, you know, doing the right things in matches is what the big goal is. Because if I do those things, I am going to have the results. I am going to get up there in the world. It is kind of amazing I am No. 3 in the race now. But I haven't been thinking I want to be No. 3 in the race. I have been thinking, you know, do this and work hard and be mentally tough in the matches and it is just going to come.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I think I could have -- you know, I am not making an excuse. That is not something I would do. I played the match and if it was too bad, I wouldn't have played the match. I went out there and did my best. And the only thing that the arm takes away from me is a little bit of power on my serve. I can serve a little harder with it, but, you know, the serves really weren't going in so I guess it doesn't matter how hard you serve it.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: My family has been here the entire two weeks. My dad is my coach so he is always here.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: Yes, we actually just hired a coach who is going to come to our house next week. He is playing Futures, Satellites, those kinds of events. He is going to try to make it as well.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: Absolutely, tons of advice I give him.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I think I actually went into that a little bit already. He does. He fields balls, I mean, the other guys just simply can't, huge balls, the corners, he gets them back, hits them back deep, hits passing shots that are just too good. A lot of time he makes it real hard for serve and volley players to come in. I have been coming in quite a bit. He kept me at the baseline. He knows the angles and he sees shots that other guys just don't. Somehow he is able to say, hey, this is the right shot to hit and actually hit it. Which is you know pretty impressive.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I think it's the most interesting thing about Andre is the way he serves. Andre is capable of hitting some pretty big serves. He is not capable of sustaining that big serve and doing that. If he does that, I don't think he can be in good shape against a returner like me. I think I will be able to have a lot of second serves to look at and I think would be breaking him. What he does do he hits -- these serves that are slower and kicks them and throws in because you can't tell where he is going to hit it, and you know, he mixes up his serve better than anybody else in the game. He is extremely intelligent, and I was actually thinking that out there. I don't know what he is going to do with his serve. And he even kicks some serves out wide that are going by me like 70 miles an hour, but I am just being fooled by it and that is impressive. I am never going to be a player like that. I am not going to serve that slow or, you know, place it around those things. I just haven't grown up playing serving like that. I think I have too big of a serve to waste it. But I can learn a lot from that with placing my second serve and maybe taking some spin off of it, kicking a few first serves here and there, and trying to learn to do things like that. I think it will help me a little bit in my matches as well.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I think it does. He will -- when he does get all those first serves in is really tough to attack him. He is always on the attack. He is the one controlling the points. He's running me side to side like a rag doll. (Laughs) but, you know, that's what allows him to dictate those points is him getting all those first serves in and playing smart tennis out there. Then he goes for those big ones. It is almost like he hits those big ones just to show you that he can and it throws you off even a little bit more. It is a good plan. It has obviously worked well for him. It did today.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I think that he -- there was a lot of running. I don't think I lost a step out there. I felt like if anything it is just deflating when you are not winning. It wasn't even really that close, that is the only deflating thing. I think I was ready to go five sets if I was ready to somehow, you know, make something happen out there. But it is always tough when a guy's controlling all the points, controlling the tempo of the match, that kind of thing and you can let that sort of affect your movement a little bit more. So me being tired, I am not tired in the least bit. I might run back to the hotel, I don't know. I think I deserve to run back to the hotel.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I signed with Ford modeling agency last year and, you know, I do things here and there. But actually they haven't done a whole lot for me so far. I actually, you know, I do magazine stuff here and there and I am looking -- I am not the kind of guy who can go out on castings day by day. It would be fun if I lived in Miami, I could do that in my off time. I have to look for things like a campaign where somebody is interested in me promoting something like a Calvin Klein or something like that, a fragrance, just can't be something -- I can't fly all the way from Spokane, I am too busy schedule-wise to really get a lot of it done.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I did People last year. I did the thing for Sports Illustrated's women issue is coming up, Men's Journal recently, some things that I have done and it is mostly swimwear, that kind of thing. But I haven't gotten to be real serious in it because actually my tennis career is going pretty well. So that is what really concerns me, that -- modeling, in that aspect of it, is something that, you know, I will do it for fun and I will do it here and there because it is something that I like to do, but it is not something that would ever interfere with anything tennis-wise.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I never said anything about his volleys.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: Well guarantee you this -- he is not going to become a serve and volleyer and start winning tennis tournaments because of that. That is not going to happen. He is not the best volleyer in the world. He knows that. He comes to the net closes off points with easy volleys and throws it in here and there to keep guys on their toes. Andre is the best thinker in the game; maybe the best thinker the game has ever had. You know, he doesn't really have weaknesses in the game that he plays. I don't think. His weaknesses is sometimes his head, if anything, when he is not out there to play. That is his only weakness.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I'd say normally I think that in this circumstance however I have been playing really good tennis. I think that maybe on another day I would be out there toe to toe with him, might be able to beat him. But today he just did all the right things and I didn't do enough of the right things to really get it done out there. Definitely when you are playing one of those guys who is one of the top players and I need to think of myself nowadays as one of the top players, one of the guys that is tough to beat out there, you know, if I want to stay up where I am. And -- but it is definitely -- it is a great measuring stick. In the past it has been amazing for me to play guys like Pete and Andre and these top guys. That is great. And now when I go out to those matches I want to go out there and beat them, didn't get it done today but I am definitely looking forward to the next meeting.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I think coming out of this what, five tournaments swing for me has been pretty dang good. Only the Australian Open only tournament that I haven't made the quarterfinals or better in this whole year. That is a pretty good stat to have. I am ^4produced ^ proud of that, proud of the way that I am competing in the matches. I am ^4produced ^ proud of the way that I am coming to each tournament and giving myself the opportunity to win, and instead of coming out there and worrying about this or that. I am coming out there having a good time. It is more fun for me to play. And, you know, in that I think it is showing my tennis quite a bit.