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TMS - THE ERICSSON OPEN


March 25, 2001


Venus Williams


THE ERICSSON OPEN, MIAMI, FLORIDA

THE MODERATOR: First question for Venus, please.

Q. You had both knees bandaged tonight. What was the reason for that?

VENUS WILLIAMS: Just protection.

Q. Either one sore or just precautionary?

VENUS WILLIAMS: Precautionary.

Q. You happy with your playing?

VENUS WILLIAMS: I'm fairly content, you know, I'm doing some of the things that I've been working on. Sometimes I'm not, but other times I am so I got to be happy with the win tonight that I didn't have to work too hard and really move on to tomorrow.

Q. Conserve a little bit of energy by doing that?

VENUS WILLIAMS: Not conserve energy, but really just not stressing my body too much.

Q. I am loving this blue and white.

VENUS WILLIAMS: Thank you.

Q. Everyone is teasing me because I am doing the fashion questions. Is this one of yours?

VENUS WILLIAMS: Well, no. It's not one of my designs. Serena was telling me she likes it a lot, too.

Q. I like it a lot. I noticed you've been doing a lot with white, you had the white with orange during Wimbledon. Now this.

VENUS WILLIAMS: I don't know.

Q. Is it a trend?

VENUS WILLIAMS: Normally I try not to wear white but this turned out to be the best set in the little collection, so... This is what I'm in. Actually, I've won matches in this. I have other dresses I can wear, but I'm just superstitious.

Q. I wonder what happens to the ones that are retired. What happened to the Wimbledon outfit and what happened to the US Open outfit?

VENUS WILLIAMS: I saved the Wimbledon outfit and the US Open outfit. The rest, I'll try to save one of each design, then I have to get rid of the rest, give them away.

Q. Do you feel like you play better in a particular style? I notice you favor the two pieces or the cutouts.

VENUS WILLIAMS: Well, normally I have the one-piece for the past couple years, but now I have the two-piece. I have some one-piece dresses but I haven't been wearing them.

Q. Other than stamina, you kind of blowing through people? I mean, it's kind of easy right now. I mean if you had some tough matches early on with some tough wins, would that be helpful in the end?

VENUS WILLIAMS: I've had a lot of tough matches in my life, so I've been there and I've done that and really I like it this way. That means I'm playing good because I was up 4-1 and I could see her trying to move her feet and get in there. I felt that I kept the balls deep and hard and so I kept neutralizing her efforts. I think she really just felt that she couldn't get her foot in. Although she didn't play exactly bad, maybe she felt a little rushed. But I know she can play. She's a good player and I've played her before. So, I think it's good for me that I'm able to do that.

Q. She hits pretty hard.

VENUS WILLIAMS: Yeah, she does. Gets something on the ball.

Q. You don't waste any time. When it comes to getting the ball to move, you don't waste any time?

VENUS WILLIAMS: Sometimes I'm playing too fast. I try to slow myself down but I just don't want to, especially tonight. Other days I play a little bit slower, but sometimes I do play fast, especially if I lose a point. I want to get to the next one and kind of correct the mistake.

Q. How do you adjust to the flow of the match? (Inaudible)?

VENUS WILLIAMS: Depending on what kind, if I had a long point, naturally I'll try to recover a little bit. If I make too many mistakes, I do have to slow down and take a step back and reconsider. But, normally I do like to play fast.

Q. Is that happening in a millisecond in your mind? So much is going on. How do you work it when you're trying to pace yourself?

VENUS WILLIAMS: The best thing is when you play and you don't have to think. But when I'm out there and I do have to think about what I'm doing, then I think I just need to go back to practice and work a little harder.

Q. And in the practice process, how do you work that out? I'm trying to go from what happens in your mind. You need to go to practice and work that out. Can you tell me what happens?

VENUS WILLIAMS: Well, if I'm not turning my hips on the ball, maybe I'm just not comfortable with doing it in a match, I'll go to practice and work on it. Especially if I have an easy match, I'll start working on things that I want to do especially under pressure situations.

Q. Are there days you just don't feel like practicing?

VENUS WILLIAMS: That doesn't happen too often, especially at a tournament. I will practice. At home, a lot of times I don't feel like practicing. But when I was at the Olympics, I didn't feel like practicing and I didn't because when I went out there, I was just wasting time and kind of making my game a lot worse because I was playing lazily. So at that point, I was tired. I had done a lot of weeks in a row. So that's the reason I didn't really want to hit.

End of FastScripts....

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