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SONY ERICSSON OPENMarch 29, 2008Lindsay DavenportMIAMI, FLORIDA THE MODERATOR: Questions, please. Q. Welcome back here. LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Thanks, Charlie. Anything else? Q. Why the long absence? LINDSAY DAVENPORT: You know, it's just kind of the way it worked out. I would have never thought that five years ago would have been my last time I played here. But I didn't play for a couple of years, got injured, was pregnant. I mean, just a lot of things got in the way. But I have to say I've really enjoyed myself so far this year. I was excited when I got back out on that court. It's a great, great center court. Q. You were never that keen on the conditions either. You were talking about the wind. LINDSAY DAVENPORT: It's tough coming from Indian Wells for me. Indian Wells is a huge tournament in my backyard. And historically the year that's I skipped playing here I was in the finals there and playing doubles. You know, it's tough to keep going all the time. Who knows. I mean, you look back over the years and you wonder if you made the right decisions sometimes schedule-wise. But certainly this is the biggest tournament we have in the United States besides the US Open. I think it is important that everyone support it. Obviously it's mandatory now, but I really was going to come in 2006 when I hurt my back at Indian Wells and couldn't make it. Last year I was pregnant, and this year I'm here. Q. Have you ever been on a Hawk-Eye court where the ball was called out, and in your mind there was just absolutely no question that the ball hit the line? LINDSAY DAVENPORT: No. Q. The ball hit the line, and you thought it was on, but the Hawk-Eye proved you to be wrong? LINDSAY DAVENPORT: There hasn't been a time where I was like - there's a couple times you know for sure and you check and it's changed or whatever. And couple of times where you're not sure and you're wrong. There's never been a time like no, no, absolutely positive, and it was wrong either way. Q. Do you believe in the system? LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Yeah. Q. There's a standing invitation for every player to go up to the computer room. LINDSAY DAVENPORT: I've heard that, actually. Q. Have you ever taken that? LINDSAY DAVENPORT: I haven't done it, but I had someone tell me that. I wish I had time in the day to go check it out, but I've heard the technology's pretty awesome in how they put it all together. Q. Couple of people that have talked about you, Mary Joe and some others, said you just seem to be happier on the court since you've become a mom. Do you feel like you just have a different attitude, do you think, since you've become a mom? LINDSAY DAVENPORT: I think overall just in life, how can you not be more fulfilled or happier when you have a baby? So I think that that obviously is impossible not to show. You know, Mary Joe sometimes still tells me I'm too hard on my self, so... I'm going to tell her that. Q. That's what she said. She said you used to be so angry and it cost you matches. LINDSAY DAVENPORT: I'm sure. I mean, I'm a perfectionist. I feel like I'm smart enough out there to realize when I've blown it, and sometimes that's not a good thing. Sometimes you'd like to be just completely oblivious. But there's no question. I'm in the greatest part ever of my life. Playing tennis, I don't know if I'm playing tennis as well as I did a few years ago, but it's still at a high level and I've never enjoyed it more. Q. Talk about today a little bit. LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Yeah. I think I always say her name wrong: Pin, Camille, I knew that I would be in control of a lot of points and she'd run down a lot of balls. I know she got injured, and I don't think she ran down as many balls as she normally does. I was kind of trying to get used to the conditions out there. For here it's a pretty calm day, but it's still a steady breeze going one way. But happy to get off the court relatively fast and pretty efficient. Q. What do you do travel-wise with the baby? Do you have a babysitter that comes with you? LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Uh-huh, yeah. She travels with me. You know, the hardest part is just kind of packing up his stuff. In the States it's not as hard as going overseas. Obviously you want him to have everything he's familiar with. In the States it's pretty easy to drive around and find if I forget something. But by far the most stressful thing for me now is packing his stuff. It seems like my stuff I kind of throw together at the last minute. But his stuff I have to count everything out, and outfits and detergent and food to everything, toys. Yeah, it takes a lot more time and thought process goes into things now. Q. Is it still your plan to pretty much skip the clay court season at this point? LINDSAY DAVENPORT: I don't know. I've been having a little bit of thoughts about that. I don't know exactly what I'm going to do at this point. I've played in Rome only once and had to withdraw in the first round. My husband's dying to go to Italy, so he wants me to go try and play Rome so he can go. But I don't know. I mean, you know, playing on the clay would be more kind of for fun. I don't believe that I'm one of the best clay courters out there by any means. But I have to go to Moscow for Fed Cup, so I'm going to be in Europe. We're just trying to figure out if it makes sense to play one or two tournaments there. But most definitely I don't plan on playing the French Open. Q. Would it be beneficial to have some clay court time before the Fed Cup? LINDSAY DAVENPORT: It will be. It's just a few weeks after this, so I'll get on clay, and go play Amelia Island, have one week at home, and we're in Moscow. Q. Are you going to play doubles at the Fed Cup? LINDSAY DAVENPORT: I have no idea. I have gotten just about very little contact with Zina and that's just what day she wanted me to arrive on. Other than that, I have no idea. Ashley Harkleroad told me that she was going, and Venus and Serena told me they're not, so that's all I know. Q. What do you do when you have a great doubles player who is not particularly a great singles player, like Liesl Huber. You know she can play great doubles, but you feel like you might need an extra singles player? LINDSAY DAVENPORT: My theory is because the chance of an injury happening is always there in women's tennis, I believe in three singles players and one doubles player for the Fed Cup team. Whoever Zina chooses is up to her and fine with me. I think you're a little bit - we're hurting ourselves if we take two singles players and one doubles team with two player that's can't play singles. You absolutely never know what happens. And if we're all the way in Russia and something happens Thursday, no one's going to be able to get there in time for Saturday. So I believe Zina is going to choose Liesl. I don't know that, like I said, but Zina told me. But I'm anticipating she's on the team. But we never know too far ahead of time. Q. In La Jolla you spoke about trying to convince Serena and/or Venus to come. LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Yeah, didn't work (laughing). Q. What was their reasoning? LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Yeah, I saw Venus in Memphis, and she said that she wasn't going. I tried for about one minute, and she just smiled and she's like, Nope. And I actually haven't seen Serena until here. It was really brief as she was walking to go play. I said, Hey, are you going? And she's like, Nope, with the same smile. I totally respect players' decisions. I mean, for a lot of ties I didn't go. It's not easy to go to Moscow in April. So I'm not going to be sitting there... Q. It's better than Moscow in January. LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Yeah. Going to Moscow's tough. Q. How many times have you seen where a younger player is playing against an opponent who gets an injury? It's either a giant injury or a long timeout like you had today? Then the player comes back and the unhurt player has a difficult time somehow coping with how to play with the person's injury. You just stepped on the gas. Do you have to learn how to cope with that? LINDSAY DAVENPORT: I think you get more and more used to it the more times it happens. I think the first couple of times in your career it's very challenging. You maybe feel more pressure after it's happened for many times. You realize that it's nothing. You've got to just worry about yourself. Having said that, sometimes it's very challenging playing a top player who gets injured but still has the ability to kind of play through it sometimes. Maybe like Serena at Wimbledon that year with her calf. You knew she was down and out, but she has such a big game, sometimes the player can play through it. That's when it gets really challenging and tricky still trying to play your game and not let the player hit their way out of it. Q. When you're young, is there a tendency to start pushing against that player that's hurt? LINDSAY DAVENPORT: You try to make balls, and then you get frustrated. You get annoyed with your opponent then. You start missing balls. You think you should be winning and you're not winning. Kind of run the gamut of emotions in that situation. Q. How much were the Olympics a factor in your decision to come back? LINDSAY DAVENPORT: It was probably the first factor that really, first positive thing that really got me thinking about it. It was last summer after he was born and we were talking about coming back. It was like I have 13 months until the Olympics. I figured, Gosh, that's a really long time. I think I can do that and be ready. I didn't know I'd be playing as much as I have been and my body would respond as well as it has. But that was definitely the first thing that was in my mind and got me back out on the court and excited to come back. Q. How much of that is genetics? LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Probably a lot. You know, my family is an Olympic family. Whenever the Olympics are on, winter, summer, when I was growing up it was on our TV all day long. You know, I remember sitting there watching Mary Lou Retton win the gold medal live. I was up way past my bedtime L.A. time because she did the vault so late. But I remember everything about the Olympics that have taken place. Q. You've talked in the past about the thrill of the opening ceremony in Atlanta. What about winning the gold medal, where does that rank in your career highlights? LINDSAY DAVENPORT: That and the US Open are definitely the top two. In tennis it's measured on Grand Slams, so winning the US Open was like a huge, huge achievement. But I would think for my family and the Olympics being the first big thing that I won, it always has a special place in my heart. And for my family, it would definitely be the Olympics. It was so unexpected, too. I wasn't seeded that high, so it was really kind of more of an upset and surprise. Q. Do you think the Olympic team for America might be a little bit different than the Fed Cup team? LINDSAY DAVENPORT: I'm hoping. My goal is to try and send the absolute best team we can. And that, obviously, is Venus and Serena. I think Liesl's ranked No. 1 in doubles. I'm not sure what Lisa is. But we want to send the best team we can. I've always said it's a shame that they don't also award a team medal so we'd be working as a team more than just kind of like an individual tournament. But you do get the sense that you guys are all part of the U.S. tennis team, Team U.S.A., whatever country you're playing for. So you always want to see your countrymates do well. Q. How about Ashley? She's the one stepping up to the plate now. LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Absolutely. I think they go by rankings, so I think what the rankings are in June. And Ashley, with all her wins, is most likely going to be the third or fourth player. So I think it's great. She's really great to get to know her in La Jolla. I was really impressed with how she's done so far this year. Great girl. So I really hope that she is there, not slighting any other Americans, but whoever we've been told is ranked I think it's June 9th, is top 4 in singles, will go. Q. Will you take on Ana Ivanovic if that's what happens? LINDSAY DAVENPORT: I hope Ivanovic, Ana wins. It's one of the few top players I've never played, and that's what I look forward to most about this come back. You know, I've played Venus and Serena and Justine and those players so many times. It would be refreshing to play someone new. I have a ton of respect for her. I think she's a great competitor, great player. I think that she is one of the nicest players off the court and very down to earth. She's got a very big game. I watched her play in Australia, especially the match against Daniela. I guess I was home that night watching that. But obviously big groundstrokes, a big serve. She looks like she's in a lot better shape than two years ago. She moves around the court pretty well. So it's going to be fun to play someone - I think she's 2 in the world now - and she's had a great year so far. Q. On a day like today, you've won your match now, now will you get to spend the rest of the day with your son? How do you parcel out the time so you can get rest and also be with him? LINDSAY DAVENPORT: I will spend the rest of the day, except for the hour that I have to go play doubles. But, no, my body's feeling good, so I don't think I'll be here getting any treatment or anything. He's waiting for me upstairs in the restaurant now. He'll probably hang with me until I go play. Hopefully take his nap when I'm on the doubles court and get home. We've been going to bed pretty late here because of California time, so he's been up to 11:00 or midnight. Q. He sleeps through the night? You don't wake up with him or anything? LINDSAY DAVENPORT: No. He kind of talks in his sleep, so we have to make sure that he's far enough away that if he's babbling we don't hear him. But if he's in duress we'll hear him, which sometimes happens. Q. You've been making all the self-corrections that you made on court. What is it you want Adam to do for you at this stage? LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Well, Adam has been a great friend and very loyal coach of mine for many years. You know, he obviously makes life way easier around the courts and getting everything organized for me and racquets and balls. He plays extremely well, so he's always challenging me on the practice court. And we go over things quite a bit, you know, about my opponent, about my game. I also have my husband that's very knowledgeable about tennis that I'll talk to. But for me, it's not so much about learning new stuff, it's about trying to keep what I have and keep doing that well and fresh and make minor corrections, especially at tournaments. You never want to make too big of an adjustment. End of FastScripts |
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