US OPEN

September 5, 1997

Yevgeny Kafelnikov

Daniel Vacek

Q. Yevgeny, you're such a superior singles player. Do you ever have doubts about playing doubles as well in tournaments? Are you very well adjusted to the dual event?

YEVGENY KAFELNIKOV: I'll tell you one thing, if I'm out of Top 50 for some reason, I'm still playing tennis. I'm not going to stay to play just doubles. You know, no question, I like to play tennis very much. But doubles not going to keep me on the court.

YEVGENY KAFELNIKOV: No question it's honor to win any Grand Slam. So we had two French Opens. To have another one, which is US Open, is not bad. I'm very happy.

YEVGENY KAFELNIKOV: We just agree to play, that's it. Whenever one of us still don't want to play, we don't play. So I guess that's how commitment. But we do like to play big tournaments like Grand Slams, Super 9's. Hopefully we'll continue to play successfully like we did this summer in the next future.

YEVGENY KAFELNIKOV: Yeah, yeah.

DANIEL VACEK: No, he's saying everything.

YEVGENY KAFELNIKOV: Right. In double's match, it's really important to hold your serve. If you're down a break, it's almost like the set is over. Fortunately, we were able to break both times Bjorkman's serve. You know, I guess Jonas, he's concentrating more on his singles semifinals tomorrow. Maybe I'm wrong, but felt like he didn't try too much effort. He wanted to save energy, which is understandable. So that was a good thing for us.

YEVGENY KAFELNIKOV: To lose to Woodforde in the second round of singles, that was very difficult (laughter).

YEVGENY KAFELNIKOV: Well, we're going to leave, unfortunately. We're not going to stay and watch tomorrow's semifinal match.

YEVGENY KAFELNIKOV: How does he charge? I'm going to put it, plug in.

YEVGENY KAFELNIKOV: We like to communicate first off the court. That's the most important thing. Whatever happens on the court, it doesn't really matter. If we win, we win. If we lose, not bad either. It's hard to find the right person around you these days because, you know, you have to rely a hundred percent. You know, I feel like I can rely on Daniel a hundred percent. So that's why we continue our partnership.

YEVGENY KAFELNIKOV: Actually, we hate it (laughter). We hate both. Maybe Daniel has different opinion. The most thing I don't like, to travel. That's the hardest thing for me right now.

DANIEL VACEK: It's taking a lot of time over the year. That's very hard, to stay away for 35 weeks a year, 40 weeks a year.

YEVGENY KAFELNIKOV: Why? Because they cannot play doubles, that's why. That's the simple answer.

YEVGENY KAFELNIKOV: Exactly. You're exactly right.

YEVGENY KAFELNIKOV: Yeah. Otherwise I wouldn't be in the Top 10 for the last three years.

YEVGENY KAFELNIKOV: I started to serve much better, I started to volley much better through the doubles. And that was, you know, the important, very important aspect of the singles game, serve and volley.

YEVGENY KAFELNIKOV: (Laughter) Well, as the highest single's ranked player, I choose Russian, so we speak Russian. Whenever Daniel becomes a better singles player, we will speak Czech.