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AUSTRALIAN OPENJanuary 26, 2010Todd WoodbridgeMark WoodfordeMELBOURNE, VICTORIA THE MODERATOR: The Woodies are here today to talk about their induction into the Australian Hall of Fame. Questions. Q. Todd and Mark, where does this rank? You've won every Grand Slam and Olympic gold and silver. Where does it rank in those honors for you guys? MARK WOODFORDE: Um, it's -- well, for me, I'm -- Todd will be able to answer for himself as well -- but I think it's such an incredible honor and probably equal, if not better, than winning the Wimbledons and the Olympics, you know, because I think it just reflects back about how well you succeeded in the sport. What was it, a year and a half ago we were inducted in the Sports Australia Hall of Fame. Now to be recognized by the Australian Tennis Hall of Fame - and hopefully we're on the ballot for the International Tennis Hall of Fame - you know, that's just way, way above what I think I expected when I started out with my career. TODD WOODBRIDGE: I think that the thing this highlights for me is, you know, this evening when they unveil the bust of us and you get put out in Garden Square with people that I kind of wonder whether we should be with. The likes of, you know, Newcombe and Roche as a doubles combination, the Lavers, Rosewalls, Frasers. That, for me, I feel quite intimidated to be in that company. So it's a great honor. I'm quite overwhelmed by that. Q. Have you seen your bust yet? TODD WOODBRIDGE: (Laughter.) No. MARK WOODFORDE: Have you? TODD WOODBRIDGE: We only get to see that out on court. Hopefully it resembles myself. We're waiting to see whether we're joined or not or as individuals. MARK WOODFORDE: In a sense, you hope that when people go past the bust as well, they recognize without having to look at the plaque. Yeah, that's Todd or Mark. You know, it would be kind of embarrassing if it doesn't look like you or us. But I'm sure it'll be a great surprise. I'm sure Barbara's got it spot on. Q. You won't go back and tell them? MARK WOODFORDE: No changes to it now. Q. In a particular event like this, it's also reflective time. One wonders what your most memorable moments have been in the sport. Can you each comment on that. TODD WOODBRIDGE: For me, it was winning Olympic gold medal. People have often said, Should tennis be in there? I felt at that moment we had some magnificent achievements in Wimbledon and Grand Slam tennis. I think that elevated us above just being tennis players. We became a household name in Australia as sportsmen. I think that particular event was an opportunity where we were expected to win. People had almost ticked off a gold medal in the tally for Australia. To cope with that expectation and pressure, that was one of the great moments of a combination for me. Q. Is that because you're playing for your country? TODD WOODBRIDGE: Yeah, when you play for your country you play with the most pressure of anything you ever do. When you play as an individual, it's your own expectation. When you play for a nation, it's theirs. Q. Mark, how about you? MARK WOODFORDE: You know, that year that we won the gold medal anyway was I think, by far, our most superior year. I mean, we won I don't know how many tournaments it was, but we were clearly the best team and dominating. We were both enjoying a solid singles season. So there was that expectation, wasn't it? But I think we just sort of handled it pretty well. It's not that we just thought, Yeah, that's coming our way. It was a unique situation to be in that a lot of the other Olympic athletes were kind of, Oh, yeah, there's the Woodies; there's Mark and Todd. There's maybe a gold medal coming our way. So it was really a different pressure than we were -- an unusual pressure that we hadn't really experienced. From winning the first Wimbledon to the last Wimbledon, you know, there's significant victories in a number that we went through. TODD WOODBRIDGE: It was ten years. Each one had a specific moment within a lifespan, the first, the last... MARK WOODFORDE: The Davis Cup match. That one sort of stands out for me. TODD WOODBRIDGE: In Nice. MARK WOODFORDE: We got over the line against the French guys. We had lost to them twice leading up to the Davis Cup final. That was really our -- that was our real struggle that year, 1999, for us. We weren't churning out the victories as we had been accustomed to. But, you know, it's like we didn't give up. Never let it really affect us. It affected our performance is, but between, us, Okay, let's get back and keep going at it. We knew we were better than some of the results. Look, it practically won Australia the Davis Cup. Historically, that win got us over the line. Q. In those times, is the pressure very different between Olympics, Davis Cup, and individual Grand Slam play? TODD WOODBRIDGE: I think they come at different moments in your career when you're at different phases of confidence. Mark mentioned that Davis Cup match. That had been a terrible year. That was a pivotal match. One of the key things in the partnership was communication. We worked so hard to make that one work. After that, we won the French Championship, which we had never won before. That was the one Grand Slam title that was missing. That sort of unlocked everything for us to be able to take pressure off. If we can do something like that at the French, it'll happen; whereas we tried so hard before. That was just a, Well, what will be will be attitude. You know, that changes all of that perspective from that one match in France. MARK WOODFORDE: We had some shocking results in Paris. It really was that one victory from the brink the defeat in the Davis Cup match that switched not only the Davis Cup around for Australia, but for us to succeed the following year. We both believed if we're gonna be considered as one of the best ever, you have to win everything: The majors, the four Grand Slams. So that was the one jewel that wasn't there. So to finish that last year winning the French Open kind of, okay, the jig saw sat nicely. Q. Do you remember the first time the two of you played together? MARK WOODFORDE: Oh, yeah. TODD WOODBRIDGE: It wasn't that bad, was it? MARK WOODFORDE: It was. It was a shocker. (Laughing.) TODD WOODBRIDGE: That was in New Haven in whatever year. Yeah, we lost badly. We both played a different side of the court. Next time we played we basically swapped sides. That was that. Then it got better. MARK WOODFORDE: Got better. And we came off the court as well and we were -- our coach, Ray Ruffles, was -- you know, at times he could be very district and heated towards us when we performed badly. That's his role. We were kind of expecting he was just gonna blow us up badly about -- we were preparing for him to just scream at us, and he just chuckled. He said, God, that was shocking. You're gonna be better next time. And it was. As Todd said, we went off and virtually won the next tournament we played once we switched sides. So it was a very quick change of fortunes for us. Q. Your partnership on court seemed to be really good the whole time. Was there any time it wasn't good or you had a spat with each other? TODD WOODBRIDGE: I based on one side of America and Mark based on the other. MARK WOODFORDE: Adelaide and Sydney, now Melbourne. (Laughter.) TODD WOODBRIDGE: Not really. We had a couple moments, maybe two or three, throughout our whole ten-year partnership. MARK WOODFORDE: It's inevitable. We're both competitive. We weren't competitive towards each other, but competitive in and amongst this quadrant of players. They're trying to beat us as much as we're trying to beat them. You know, so it... TODD WOODBRIDGE: Through that whole process we had really strong goals and wanted to do well. We both knew that we did that best with each other. So in some ways it was like a business. MARK WOODFORDE: Yep. TODD WOODBRIDGE: But I think on average the stat was we won every fourth tournament that we played. So, you know, after a bad week or two you knew there was going to be a good one around the corner. Q. When you retired, did you miss it? Do you miss it now? MARK WOODFORDE: After yesterday's result, no. (Laughter.) Glad that it's far beyond us. TODD WOODBRIDGE: I would say at times. But no, I thought when we retired as a partnership, was it Sydney Olympics, we lost the final and won a silver medal. But I think that one tournament was just an amazing way to finish. The timing was right for that. Would've been great to win it, but you were getting old. MARK WOODFORDE: I was. Q. Do you still send Christmas cards to each other? TODD WOODBRIDGE: Do we? Do the wives? MARK WOODFORDE: I don't know if the wives do. We tend to forget. You know, occasionally he'll send me one and I'll send him one and our wives do. You know you're gonna end up walking into each other again at events like these. TODD WOODBRIDGE: We see each other three, four, five times a year. Q. Apart from yourselves and looking at other doubles players, which have been the best combination you've ever played against? Is there one that stands out? TODD WOODBRIDGE: Well, I mean our rivals were Elting and Haarhuis. There were individuals that played great doubles. You played with one of them in John McEnroe. Always felt -- occasionally played against Boris Becker. He didn't play a lot. He was another great individual doubles player. MARK WOODFORDE: Would have been nice to play a few more of those guys. We did play the top singles players in doubles events and we handled them. We didn't fear them at all. It's just that they weren't -- you know, I think we were involved in a period of the doubles where the top singles players weren't necessarily transitioning into doubles too much. So when the opportunity arose for us to play against them, you know, we -- I mean, we did well against them. So there was no problem with us. I think there are a lot of teams out there today that would struggle if the top singles players stepped into the doubles game today. But I don't know. I always felt like that after a number of years, our main opponents were ourselves. It wasn't necessarily the guys at the other end. It was just us trying to stay fresh and lift the standard and reset goals and sort of move towards them. Because there were times in the years that we played together, you know, it's not always gonna work. But, you know, we sure as hell tried make it work every time. Yeah, sometimes it was just -- but that's the partnership of, you know, I might not have been playing well and Todd stepped up. The next week, he might not be able to hit a ball over and it was my duty to try and shoulder that through. You know, it worked. Q. How do you see doubles in the future of tennis? There's a lot innovation coming into tennis. Would you like to see some sort of new innovation? TODD WOODBRIDGE: Well, I think the scoring system has already been changed for a couple years now. I think we'll probably see singles slightly go more towards that format somewhere in the future, too. Being a time span sport as opposed to do the traditional, we'll have both. With that, I think doubles will become more prominent again. Because it's not the length of time on the court, it's about winning. I think that's an important factor. The other key factor is a guy like Nadal who specifically at times goes and plays doubles and worked on his game. Worked on returning, worked on learning how to finish balls better at net and his volleying skills. It's evident in a player like him. He's used it specifically to enhance his singles game, and I think that's why that part of it will never go away. Q. So the reflexes in doubles have to be a little bit faster? MARK WOODFORDE: Yeah. TODD WOODBRIDGE: Yeah. They've got to be natural and instinctive, too. MARK WOODFORDE: I think some of the guys should actually be duty-bound to play doubles. The tours itself work together. That you're almost -- you're bound ranking-wise. You have to play X amount of doubles tournaments during the year. Pick a number, a small amount. The singles players are playing a few more doubles, but I think doubles is just a part of the history of tennis. You know, you're not just a singles player or just a doubles player. Still kind of rankles us that we were called doubles players. Tennis is about playing singles and doubles. I kind of would like to see maybe the tours get to the stage of you got to play half a dozen doubles tournaments throughout the year. You must, otherwise it affects your singles ranking. Q. Do you think it would help maybe to get Tomic and Hewitt to be forced to play some doubles? MARK WOODFORDE: That's for you. You're in charge of menace tennis. (Laughing.) TODD WOODBRIDGE: First things first, we just need to try to get a good Davis Cup team together first. We'll work that scenario out when we get to it. Q. You've got a Legends match towards the end of the week. Someone we work called Hughes that will be playing in that. I you know you've been saying around Melbourne Park that he's disgraceful and shouldn't be on court. TODD WOODBRIDGE: Look, I put him through qualifying to get in, and he did his best to distract me, as you well know. But a one and one victory to me, I thought he showed a bit of potential. I'm willing to put that opponent out on court on Friday and see if Dave Hughes can actually come through. Mentally I'm not sure if he's sound enough. Physically he looked good. I'm interested in really seeing the result. I think so will a lot of people. MARK WOODFORDE: What's pathetic is that you allowed him a couple of games even. TODD WOODBRIDGE: Well, maybe that was a sign of the times. End of FastScripts |
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