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TMS MONTE CARLO


April 17, 2003


Rafael Nadal


MONTE CARLO

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. How do you feel?

RAFAEL NADAL: Actually, I'm happy with this tournament. I'm happy with the way I played today. I played a good match. I played well. I had opportunities. At love-30 in the first set, I missed a shot, a dropshot. It was not good. But altogether, it was not that bad.

Q. Do you think that Coria was stronger physically in the second set, or it was in the head?

RAFAEL NADAL: I believe he was physically better than I was. I had played many matches before, and I was a bit tired, I admit. My shots were not perfect, were not going so well. He was playing better than I did, and he won the match.

Q. Do you think the late finish you had yesterday affected you today at all?

RAFAEL NADAL: No, I don't think so. I think it's rather due to the number of matches I had to play, because I played the quallies. Of course I beat Costa yesterday, but this match, 7-6, 6-2, is not that bad at all. It's not a bad result at all against Coria.

Q. Are you going to rest a little bit now?

RAFAEL NADAL: Well, tomorrow I'm going to rest a little bit, but then I'm going to start to play again a little bit because I have to prepare for Barcelona.

Q. Do you know why you don't have a wildcard in Valencia?

RAFAEL NADAL: I don't know that, no. I have no idea why, but they didn't want to confirm it, whether they would give me the wildcard or not. They said they didn't know yet. I couldn't wait that long because I had to decide my program, and there was a challenger in France. So I decided to play there because I didn't want to stay without playing in case they wouldn't give me the wildcard.

Q. What did you learn after this week as a player and as a person? After your victory yesterday, are you starting a new kind of life?

RAFAEL NADAL: No, I'm going to continue the same. I just played a good tournament, that's all. I just learned how to play. I played well. In that level of tournaments, you learn how to play well.

BENITO PEREZ-BARBADILLO: You also learned how to talk to the press.

Q. You have played against Richard Gasquet for three or four years. Do you know him well? What kind of person is he, if you know him well?

RAFAEL NADAL: I don't know. Every time I'm asked about Gasquet. Well, I've seen him when we were Juniors. He's a very nice guy. He's a great guy. But I can't talk with him very much because my English is not good enough.

Q. Maybe you're going to see him in Aix-en-Provence?

RAFAEL NADAL: Yes, he's playing there.

BENITO PEREZ-BARBADILLO: Maybe you're going to get to know him better.

RAFAEL NADAL: I don't know.

Q. Do you feel any extra pressure after yesterday's win?

RAFAEL NADAL: No, absolutely no pressure.

End of FastScripts….

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