PACIFIC LIFE OPEN

March 12, 2002

Jan Michael Gambill

Q. How did you manage to turn things around?

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: Well, first of all, I'm so excited about my new socks. I have to say that right here. I don't know if anybody noticed, but I'm not wearing completely black socks anymore. What do you think? I am so pumped. I think I had a game plan out there. I stuck to it the whole match. That's something I'm very excited about. A lot of times I'll go out in my matches, serve big, hit big groundstrokes, hope the guy hits short balls I can come in on. We had an actual game plan we worked on. It's great when that works out. Started to get on him a little bit. You know, he started making errors where I was attacking his second serve. You know, I feel pretty good about it.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: To tell you the truth, my shoulder hurts just slightly, very, very, very little. I wanted to get as much heat cream on there as I could. I don't know if I had enough out there. You get out there, your pores open up, it's good to get a little bit on there. That helped stabilize my arm.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: Actually, it hasn't been hurting at all till today just a little bit. I know I've been playing a lot of matches. I know I'm going to have to take some time off after the Nasdaq-100. You know, knowing those things, I need to schedule myself intelligently.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: To tell you the truth, I'm not really concerned about Davis Cup right now. I really have to focus on myself and keeping myself healthy and healed up. That's really what I'm focusing on.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I'm certainly not worrying about it. What I'm excited about is that I'm injury-free right now. You know, having four months of injuries is very difficult, very hard on my psyche. Knowing I could have finished last year Top 15 if I just had a couple good results was very difficult for me to deal with. I'm just excited to be on the court. I'm really enjoying myself, out there fighting as hard as I can. That's really all that's on my mind.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: Hawaii is my favorite place to be. Right now I'm looking at buying a house over there. Any time I can get over there, I'm there. That's where I like to spend my off time. I'd like to live there a lot of the time. I train there and I vacation there. It's my place. It's very relaxing for me.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: There is a very special feeling. You know, I love coming here and playing. I love Palm Springs. My family used to have a place here where we used to actually train. You know, it's just a place I really enjoy coming, really enjoy myself here. The air, the ball is quick, it favors me a little bit on the groundies and serve.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I think about it a lot. That was a turning point in my career, you know. You know, winning against those statures of players was something that showed me I could be one of the top players and stay with them. Of course, I think about it, yeah. Of course, that was at a different venue. But this new venue is fantastic, as well.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: These are the new clima-cool socks. They're actually more comfortable and pretty cool looking. I think this is the new deal. There's a little black on here, quite a bit of black, so I'm stoked on these. I'm going to keep these.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: This year at least we have all Americans that are taking the wildcards. You know, I have nothing to say. I think both Chang and Martin deserved the wildcards. They've certainly earned it. They've certainly played some fantastic tennis in the past. You know, I think it was -- didn't Mardy Fish qualify here?

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: He's been getting some wildcards which I think he's deserved. I think it's good for him to qualify once in a while. It's the path that I took, the path that Andy took. I'm glad to see Mardy qualified. How did James get in?

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: He certainly earned the wildcard. I think it was very intelligent wildcards this year. Ginepri, did he get one of the quallies?

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I think that, you know, you can only give so many wildcards to so many people. I think, you know, they made the right choices this time.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I made less errors. I was a little bit smarter. I had a better game plan which I executed a lot better. That's pretty much it.