XXVI OLYMPIC GAMES

July 28, 1996

Kenneth Carlsen

KENNETH CARLSEN: I don't know. Maybe the beginning of the second set I lost my serve and, well, I think it was in the end of the ball change, the balls were pretty big, I think, and he started to return good and I lost my serve completely. I didn't get so many first serves in the second and third set, and that is why I started struggling, because he started to get the rhythm on his returns, was returning well on my second serve, so I had problems in all my service games. And that is why it happens like, it happened like I got 0 and 2 in the last two because I think I lost my serve.

KENNETH CARLSEN: Yeah. But I thought I am on a roll as well. I am playing some of my best tennis at the moment. I played well in Washington and played well in my previous match here, and I thought I had a very good chance of beating him today if I played up to my best. And I played well in the first set, where he also played well. But then he stayed on his level, but I went down. My serve started getting worse and -- but that is how it turned out to be that he won so easily in the second set. And in the third set I tried to regroup my momentum and tried to get into my serve again, but he broke me in the first game. And, I mean, it was uphill from the beginning of the second set to the end of the match.

KENNETH CARLSEN: No, I wasn't trying to get him to the net, because, actually, when the ball was going over the net, a lot of times I tried to not force the points, but tried to get the control of the points anyway. But as the match went on, he got more and more control of the long points, and that is when he is dangerous, is when he gets the control of the points. Well, in the first set when the points got going, I won a lot of those points because I was on top of the ball, I think. And in the second and third set, I started getting second on the balls. He was the one that was dictating the points.