WIMBLEDON

June 28, 2000

Martin Lee

Q. You must have felt you had a chance after the first set?

MARTIN LEE: Yeah, especially the way I felt I was playing. I broke him quite early, lost my serve, played a bad game, but then just felt quite confident holding my serve. Got to the tiebreak, then there was one fortunate point where he slipped. I had a few set points before I actually won it. Then I think the turning point was the first game of the second set where I lost my serve. Changing around, I was telling myself, "This is the important game." I was just trying to take one point at a time. Didn't get enough first serves in, gave him a chance, then the momentum changed there. Exactly the same thing happened in the third set, 40-Love up, first game of the third. I lost my serve again. That's where I think it changed.

Q. Did you tire at all?

MARTIN LEE: No, I was feeling fine. I felt if I could just keep with him, then I'd get chances. But his serve got better and better. His forehand got better and better. I just could not like get the serve back deep enough to actually put some pressure on him.

Q. After playing solid in the first set, what do you think the root of the downfall was in your own game? Not getting enough first serves in?

MARTIN LEE: Yeah, probably. But just really giving him that boost. First game of the second set gave him a big lift. If I just kept the pressure on there, he might have just folded or just actually given me a chance.

Q. Do you think it's another golden opportunity missed today, by the way you're talking?

MARTIN LEE: I'm disappointed now, especially the way I played in the first set. I thought I could have kept it going a bit more, could have made the match closer. That's when anything can happen.

Q. Looks like another reasonably lean week for the Brits at Wimbledon. What needs to change for that to improve?

MARTIN LEE: Well, Arvind won a good match yesterday.

Q. Tim is through, too.

MARTIN LEE: And Tim won. Well, I think we're all improving. I think there's Arvind, Jamie, Barry, all around 160. I don't think we've had that for a few years now. I'm probably just outside 200 now. I think we're all pushing. I think the results have got much better in Challenger levels. There's been a lot more. Arvind made two finals. Jamie won two. Barry as made a final and a semi. If you keep plugging the results out there, you're going to go forward. That's what they're doing at the moment. Hopefully in the next few months, that's what I'm going to do.

Q. How do you feel about your own game at the moment after the groin injury? Are you happy where it is at the moment?

MARTIN LEE: Yeah, I'm still happy. I'm going to go back and think about what happened today. The last four weeks, I'm very pleased with my game. It's come on a lot, especially since the injury. I'm going to just go out and work even harder to get the game up to his level for the whole match.

Q. What do you feel you've got to do to actually take your grass form onto other surfaces? What areas can you improve on?

MARTIN LEE: I still think it's the mental side, just keep concentrating. I don't actually mind any of the other surfaces. I think I can play on most surfaces. It's still believing in yourself, just getting through it.

Q. You never played him before. How did he compare to what you imagined?

MARTIN LEE: I knew what he liked to do: big first serve, hit his forehand. I think in the first set I not so much dominated, but kept the pressure on him. I just let it slip. That's when he could run around and hit his forehands. In the first set, I was running around and hitting my forehands, coming in, putting him under pressure.

Q. He disputed a few line calls. Did you see that as an opportunity he was a bit rattled, you could have got him there, taken advantage?

MARTIN LEE: In one way. Every time he disputed a line call, he played a good point, solid point after that. I didn't think he was rattled in any way, no.

Q. Did you have any support off the court in terms of family or friends?

MARTIN LEE: My family came up today. They've been up all week.

Q. Taylor watched the match. He felt that you were hitting the ball harder in the first set and that dropped. Is that fair?

MARTIN LEE: Yeah. Well, I felt the first set, because I was dominating, it's much easier to do that. In the second set, I wasn't getting enough into the rallies. I was trying to get the serve back, but he was serving so well that it didn't give me the chance to get into the rallies and move up the court.

Q. Where do you go now?

MARTIN LEE: I think I'm going to go to Bristol Challenger, Manchester, still got doubles here, then going to go out to Brazil and play a couple challengers leading up to the US quallies.

End of FastScripts….