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ROGERS CUP MEN

August 14, 2010

TORONTO, ONTARIO

THE MODERATOR: Thank you for coming this afternoon. Obviously a special day for us, Tennis Canada, to bring back two Canadian tennis legends. To my immediate left is Glenn Michibata, and to the far left is Grant Connell. They will be inducted this evening into the Rogers Cup Hall of Fame. At this time I'd like to open up the floor to questions.

Q. What's your best memory of this tournament, guys? Is it the run to the finals or what is it?
GLENN MICHIBATA: I always have a funny story with Grant. I think it was the semifinal. We were make McEnroe and Woodforde, and I think the year before they had just won the US Open, so it was a pretty big match, obviously, semifinals, Rogers Cup.
We got to match point, and they were serving. Grant plays ad, so he had to take it. He comes over to me all animated and excited because he had overheard their plan, like, you know, we talked, where we were gonna serve, whether we were gonna cross. And he overhead what they were gonna do. He said, They're gonna serve my backhand. And they're gonna cross. All I have to do, Glenn, is get this down, and we're gonna to win.
I said, Calm down, Grant. Just focus on what you're doing. Sure enough, they served backhand. He kind of shanked it, I think, off the throat, went down the line for a winner. I always remember that.
But also just not the tournament itself, but like all the hard work that goes into getting those opportunities to play and that kind of stuff, but it's always nice to come home and be able to compete and have the opportunity to play in your home country.

Q. Is that legal?
GRANT CONNELL: Absolutely. The story I was gonna tell isn't legal, so I have to change it. (Laughter.)
I always thought when Glenn and I played, when I look back at my career, that was a fine sort of time where it was actually your childhood dream, because we were both trying to play singles. We didn't look at ourselves as doubles specialists. We looked at ourselves more as failed singles players who were doing better in doubles. And then it switched over where we were full-on doubles guys.
Then it became a job where you just get paycheck to paycheck and run as fast as you can to each city before they find out how much they paid you in that last city.
For Glenn and I, we never really overachieved here. We got to the finals once, so we underachieved sometimes here relative to the other ones. Getting to the finals here, and we had that opportunity to win it as first Canadians, that was pretty disappointing, and I should have taken the offer the night before. No, I won't go there. (Smiling.)
But, yeah, it was just mainly just coming back here, and they've always been really supportive of us. I always, looking back, it would have been nice if we had won it. Of all the times we had chances, would be nice to have won this one here.

Q. How have you guys stayed involved in the sport of tennis since your retirements? And do you ever get out there anymore and still hit the ball around?
GRANT CONNELL: Well, the first -- how long have I been retired? The first six years I pretty much did every job, you know you could imagine, like executive director of Tennis BC and Davis Cup and tournament director here.
I have no degree or education, so it was kind of like my education. But I got kind of burnt out, parents. You know, you're just involved with it all the time. You need to take a little break. I had a young family, so I have nothing to do with the game anymore. But it's all fond memories and everything like that.
GLENN MICHIBATA: My life still resolves around tennis. After I was done playing I went up to Whistler for a couple of years and then went back and started traveling with Nestor and Knowles when they were playing doubles together and traveled with them, and in the meantime, I had my first child and she was getting older and it was tough to travel on the road. So I figured that was a good time to finish my degree, got into college coaching.
GRANT CONNELL: He's rubbing it in he has a degree again.
GLENN MICHIBATA: Took me 10 years to get it. (Laughter.)
I got into college coaching to help pay for my degree and get my education finished, but then I found out I really loved it and stayed in it. I became the head coach of Princeton, 10 years go by, and here I am now. Tennis is still a big part of my life.

Q. You guys kind of hit on it: failed singles players. Any way you guys would be sitting here today if you would have stayed singles or the fact that you teamed up? That's obviously why you're here and all in the Rogers Cup Hall of Fame, but is there any way you guys would have been here without getting together?
GLENN MICHIBATA: I think Grant had some good singles results at this tournament.
GRANT CONNELL: No, no, no. What was the question?

Q. The fact that you guys...
GRANT CONNELL: Are only here because we did well in doubles? No, of course. Doubles, yeah. Doubles allowed me to, you know, take a little time after tennis and do those $22,000-a-year jobs with three kids, you know. Without a doubt, doubles was really good.
It was different when we played, though. Doubles was a different beast then. It's completely changed. Back then there weren't as many doubles specialists. Maybe at the most, 10% of the draw. It was all filled with the singles guys getting more practice time and could use the courts, little extra cash. It's just -- it's not necessarily better or worse. It's just a completely different beast.
You had more respect back then, though, from the tour peers. I never felt, quite frankly -- the last few years we were pretty much pushed aside, lesser hotel, more often not picked up and smaller prize money and angry tournament directors when they're paying you 90,000 bucks for winning an event that you sell 100 tickets, those sort of things.

Q. When did you know you had something special going on?
GRANT CONNELL: I had a man crush on him when we were 16. (Laughter.)
He's a few years older than me, and he did so well and he was a little bit of a Canadian icon, and we played some Challengers in Vancouver. We both had different partners, and it worked really well. Then we just played five years straight from there.
We probably would have played longer, to tell you the truth, because we had this amazing record. We'd go like a dozen tournaments in a row, tour events, semis, but at the end of the day I think we won four and lost in 16 finals and it just started playing in our minds. People started picking up on it, like Ken Flack, every tournament, You guys lose another final? It kind of just started grating on us, eating on us.
Don't you think, at the end of the day?
GLENN MICHIBATA: Yeah.
GRANT CONNELL: We never even talked about this, but at the end of the day, it probably -- we started doubting ourselves that we lost in the so many finals. But in hindsight it's not so bad to get to the finals. Victories are so few and far between now.

Q. Still have the man crush?
GRANT CONNELL: No. Not anymore, no.

Q. As you guys were winding down your careers, Daniel Nestor was just getting going. Did you see anything of him back then that ever would have made you think he could have achieved the things that he has in his career?
GLENN MICHIBATA: Well, how can you predict that someone is going to, you know, to go on and win Grand Slam tournaments and become No. 1 in the world? I always thought, when I first saw him, he has so many more tools than I ever had. He was bigger, lefty, big serve. He had everything that I had except he was better at everything. And so if I could reach a certain level, he could certainly reach -- who knows how high he could reach?
But then again, so many other things go into it other than does the guy have the shots, the ability, the dedication, all of that. You have to have some luck and all that stuff. Thankfully for Daniel, I mean, he's a great guy. I'm so happy that everything fell into place for him.
Yeah, I mean, he's become, you know, wow. The stuff he's accomplished and how he's represented Canada has been phenomenal.
GRANT CONNELL: I think the turning point with him was not necessarily -- everybody talks about when he beat Edberg, but I think the fact that he went through a brutal year after that -- I don't think he won a match for ages -- but then came back and made it. That showed he was in it for the long haul. He had a lot of expectations on him.
I actually think he's one of the most underrated singles players we've ever had. At his prime -- well, you look at his Davis Cup record or career, he's the best one-match player probably any country could ever want to have. He beat all these top 10 guys in one match.
When he was younger, he didn't have the stamina or the fitness level or the capacity to last a whole event playing at that level.
You know, I mean, it's funny that he should save more shots for him, because I remember reading an article in this magazine called Racquets Canada, which was the quintessential tennis magazine, and Tom Tebbutt's only criticism towards Glenn was that he had too many shots, that he didn't know which one to play.

End of FastScripts

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