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L. DAVENPORT/N. Li
6‑4, 6‑4
An interview with:
LINDSAY DAVENPORT
THE MODERATOR: Questions for Lindsay.
Q. Looked kind of tough out there. LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Yeah, it was a good match. I was expecting a tough match
from her. I'd heard some good things about her. I didn't feel like I was at my
sharpest in tennis, but really happy to go out there, win the match and get to
move on.
Q. After a few match points come and
go, she seemed to play her best at those points. Did you start getting a little
antsy about it, time to close it up? LINDSAY DAVENPORT: For sure. You always want to get the match over with as
fast as you possibly can. When some opportunities go by, that probably makes it
more frustrating. But I got to say, she did play some great shots. At the end,
you know, the last couple games, were really close. I had I felt like a lot of
opportunities to go up in the second set two breaks and just wasn't quite able
to put another good return game together. Because of that, it ended up to be a
really close set.
Q. Are you at all surprised that you're
even here, considering the summer you went through? LINDSAY DAVENPORT: You know, it never crossed my mind that I wouldn't be
able to play here. It didn't cross my mind that I would miss all the tournaments
in California either. It was kind of a wake‑up call in
Stanford when I was, you know ‑‑ everyone had to sit me down and say,
"You can't play, you can't move, you can't rotate." That was a setback for a few
weeks. Really set my goal on trying to be ready for here no matter what that
meant in tournaments before here. Luckily I was able to play last week. But I
still feel like I'm still kind of trying to get back into my groove of playing
well and being consistent and being on my toes. I'm happy I'm here. I'm grateful
I'm here. Hopefully I can make the best of it.
Q. What had you heard about her game
before the match tonight? LINDSAY DAVENPORT: I heard that she had good groundstrokes. She actually hit
with some more spin than some of the other Chinese girls. She had
a really good backhand. I didn't realize her backhand, she got it off the court
quite well. I wasn't really expecting that. And that she moved well and was
pretty strong player, like to hit the ball pretty hard.
Q. You said you've been enjoying tennis
more lately. Can you elaborate on what you meant? LINDSAY DAVENPORT: I'm enjoying the challenge of everything that's come my
way in the last 18 months or so. It's been really fun and really rewarding to
get back to the top and be back into contending, being just right up there with
the best again. Because for about a year or two, I felt like I had moved away
from that. So that makes it more fun obviously when you're doing well. I think
that I've learned just to kind of embrace everything again and not think that
everything is so important, I guess, have some really great people that I work
with now and really enjoy that again. I know that it's not forever.
Q. Which came first, moving back into
that form that you felt you lost or enjoyment? LINDSAY DAVENPORT: It probably came together. You know, all of a sudden last
summer I started to do well. I think when you start to do well and get your
confidence back, everything becomes more fun. When you're playing with not your
full capacity of confidence, I think things get a little tough. I knew I could
be doing better than what I was doing. Even though I was ranked 5 or 4 or
whatever it was, I wanted to get back to the level I thought I could play at.
Q. Aside from your back, is this as
good as you felt going into a tournament in a while? Sort of assess that. LINDSAY DAVENPORT: I feel as good as I possibly could feel. I think it was a
tough summer in the fact that I didn't get to train the way I would prefer to
train. I didn't get to hit as many balls or compete as much as I would like to.
But to come in here and be able to play and not have anything majorly wrong with
me is a huge bonus. I know that my tennis can come back to me the more I play,
the more I'm out here, the more I'm competing. I've done a lot of hard work over
two years, so I'm hopeful that that will sustain me even though I maybe haven't
done as much as I would like. Just the excitement of being back here. I mean,
each year I've left the last two years, it's always been in the back of my mind,
"Oh, gosh, I wonder if that was it." It's fun to come back here and try to make
some more good memories.
