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U.S. OPEN


August 26, 1996


MaliVai Washington


NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK

Q. What was the health problem? What was going on?

MALIVAI WASHINGTON: Sorry I bolted off the court, first of all, and itt took me so long to get here I don't know, early in the match, my foot and legs felt like soup. Towards the end of the match, my stomach felt like week-old sushi. I don't know. I don't know what it was. I don't know if it was the heat. Maybe it was a combination of the heat and something I ate. I don't know. My stomach was just kind of churning for a while there. I feel a lot better now.

Q. Were you in any danger of having to stop?

MALIVAI WASHINGTON: No. I couldn't stop. I'd never stop just because of sickness. I mean, if I'm injured, you know, sometimes you can't go on. Sickness, sometimes you can cover up, puke a couple times and keep going. No, I wasn't in any danger of quitting today.

Q. Did you get sick in the training room just now?

MALIVAI WASHINGTON: I was trying -- actually, no, I didn't get as in like vomiting sick, no. But I sat down and I was trying to be as still as I could. I felt if I moved around too much, I might lose it. That's why I ran off. I didn't want anyone to see me lose it; felt like I was about to.

Q. They took you in the training room. Did you take fluids?

MALIVAI WASHINGTON: Yeah, through down a lot of water.

Q. This was in the training room or the locker room?

MALIVAI WASHINGTON: Both.

Q. When something like this happens, do you, like, make a careful study of what you ate the last couple of days and worry about it? Do you just kind of move on?

MALIVAI WASHINGTON: I don't know. I eat what I usually eat. For breakfast I always eat pancakes. That's what I had this morning. I don't know if it was that. I did have a little something, you know, in the lounge right before I went on the court.

Q. Were they made here at the US Open or were they your own?

MALIVAI WASHINGTON: Like I just said, I did have a small bite in the lounge about a half an hour before the match. I'm not saying that was it, but I don't make a habit of eating too much here at the courts.

Q. To change the topic for a second, obviously a lot of people have been talking about the seeds this week. Some of the foreign players have complained there's a distinct American skew in the way the seeds came out. As an American, have you had any time to reflect on that? Do you think some of their complaints might be valid the way Chang moved up and Andre?

MALIVAI WASHINGTON: I've always been a big fan of all tournaments following the ATP Tour rankings. I think that's the only fair way to do it. I think that's the way it should be done at all the Grand Slams. That's just my personal opinion. I remember a couple years ago at Wimbledon, I actually benefitted from being seeded when I really wasn't supposed to. Gee, I couldn't imagine what it felt like for the guy who kind of got bumped out maybe because of me. Like some of the guys were saying in the press conference yesterday in the players' lounge, a guy works his butt off for, you know, his whole career, for the whole year, he's in a position to be seeded at a Grand Slam, I don't care if he's American or Argentinian or Spanish or wherever, if he's in a position to be seeded, he should be seeded. It's an honor to be seeded at a Grand Slam. I don't think a guy should be dissed at all.

Q. What was your opinion regarding Kafelnikov?

MALIVAI WASHINGTON: Regarding what?

Q. He left. He dropped.

MALIVAI WASHINGTON: I don't know. I heard part of that was due to the fact that he was injured.

Q. He just took off.

MALIVAI WASHINGTON: I mean, because didn't he pull out of Long Island, too?

Q. Yes, he filed injury papers. But he made it pretty clear in his post injury statements that he was protesting.

MALIVAI WASHINGTON: If he feels that's the action he should take, he should take it. I mean, me, personally, I may protest in a little different way than pulling out of the tournament. I know this tournament meant a lot to him. If he had done extremely well, a couple of the guys didn't do so well, he had the chance to overtake the No. 1 spot. He definitely sacrificed a lot. Being seeded as low as he was obviously meant a lot to him. He's a ball player on any surface. What was he seeded, seventh?

Q. Yes.

MALIVAI WASHINGTON: Down from four?

Q. Yes.

MALIVAI WASHINGTON: I don't think I can agree with that seeding.

Q. Did it sound like -- a couple of players have indicated that, "Maybe we should have boycotted, not shown up Monday, come Tuesday." Was there a buzz that it was that serious, that something that big might have happened from this?

MALIVAI WASHINGTON: There was a buzz going around. My opinion is that there's never a good enough reason to really boycott. I think that went through a lot of players' minds. I think you can get your point across just as strongly without boycotting. I think we did get our point across.

Q. Until this happened, Wimbledon was the only Grand Slam that ever didn't go with the rankings. What they said was because there's so few tournaments on grass, we have to make adjustments, like a claycourter. Muster skips the tournament a couple years in a row, how do we know he should be the No. 2 seed? Do you think it should be different? Do you see any excuse for Wimbledon doing it as opposed to the other three because of that?

MALIVAI WASHINGTON: I don't think people had -- I don't know. I think sometimes people didn't have a huge problem with Wimbledon and their system, though every once in a while players did have problems. Muster had a problem this year with it. I think they wanted to seed him --

Q. Seventh.

MALIVAI WASHINGTON: I remember a couple years ago Krickstein had a problem. He, all of a sudden, came up with an injury. I'm sure it was his injury, too, why he pulled out. I'm just a big fan of, whether it's Wimbledon or not, going by the rankings. I mean, you can't just say, "We just want to seed this guy." Let's say we go back to Wimbledon next year, Tim Henman had a great year, went to the quarters. "Tim is ranked 20 in the world, let's seed him 16." You always run the risk of showing a little favoritism.

Q. When you move Andre Agassi up away from a possibly quarterfinal with Sampras, doesn't it appear like there's a problem; whatever the USTA actually says, isn't there an appearance of an impropriety there?

MALIVAI WASHINGTON: It appears that way. I mean, I'd like to hear it from the horse's mouth.

Q. Which horse?

MALIVAI WASHINGTON: What were the exact reasons for putting the seeds exactly like they did the first time around? I mean, yeah, there was that appearance. I hope that they were honestly doing the draws in the best way they could.

Q. To the best of their ability?

MALIVAI WASHINGTON: Pardon?

Q. To the best of their ability?

MALIVAI WASHINGTON: I hope they were. You know, obviously players didn't think they had done it to the best of their ability, and therefore it was redrawn.

Q. Talking about Wimbledon, is there a carryover from what you did at Wimbledon or is that past history or does that help coming into a Slam?

MALIVAI WASHINGTON: I mean, it carries over. I mean, it's a memory. I don't know. That's in England, we're in the States. That's grass, this is hard. People there are normal, people here in New York are weird (laughter). It's totally different. It's a totally new tournament; me, included, because I was born here in New York, so I'm weird, too.

Q. Can you elaborate on that?

MALIVAI WASHINGTON: Elaborate on?

Q. The weirdness.

MALIVAI WASHINGTON: I mean, I always say, you can be in New York and you can see anything, you can do anything pretty much at any hour of the day or night. Whatever your mind -- the weirdness of your mind can conceive, you can find it in New York.

Q. How about in your own mind? You say it's a memory. Does it give you more confidence that you won six five-set matches?

MALIVAI WASHINGTON: Yeah. Now I know I can get to the finals of a Grand Slam. I don't know, I'm just kind of -- I approach every tournament still the same way I always have, just one match at a time. I mean, guys aren't all of a sudden going to roll over and die just because I made the finals of Wimbledon. I mean, that was a nice accomplishment, but if anything, guys want to beat you more.

Q. More pressure, more expectations on yourself?

MALIVAI WASHINGTON: Sure. A little bit. I think I expect bigger things coming into the US Open here.

Q. What kind of things? How big?

MALIVAI WASHINGTON: You know, I'd love to -- assuming we go that far, Andre and I are supposed to meet, if seedings hold true, in the Round of 16. That would be a pretty nice meeting, I think. There's still a lot of tennis to be played before that.

End of FastScripts...

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