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IBM/ATP TOUR WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP


November 16, 1995


Thomas Muster


FRANKFURT, GERMANY

Q. What makes him so difficult to beat for you? What in his game is so --

THOMAS MUSTER: What makes it difficult is that I missed four forehands in a row, that is the difficulty. It is not a question of difficulty. It is just that I actually played well, I played well many times against him, and at the important moments, I just make too many mistakes. First set, it was 4-5. Last set, it was the same thing, missing three or four forehands in a row and that is -- this is something you cannot do.

Q. Did you have tension problems at the end of the match with your racket?

THOMAS MUSTER: Yeah, it is difficult because you play with a racket for, I don't know, one-and-a-half hours, and then you have to change it. But that is not an excuse. It is just -- I played a few games with it, so it is no reason to find an excuse for a racket which has maybe one kilo too less or whatever. It is just a question of putting the balls in the field.

Q. How do you plan the beginning of the next season, because you have a good chance in the race for the No. 1 beginning next season, will you plan your tournament schedule for that goal?

THOMAS MUSTER: I think that the Australian Open is a very important tournament and also Doah, which I play on the 1st of January, so I have a few good opportunities and I hope I can use those, but as I said, for this year, I have no real complaints. My season is over, and I had a really positive feeling about this season, with the improvement of my game and everything, so, I hope I can even do better over the winter, practice now, and start up a good season next year in Australia.

Q. Do you intend to play as much next year as you did this year?

THOMAS MUSTER: Going to play more tournaments than this year, yeah.

Q. Play more next year than this year?

THOMAS MUSTER: Yeah.

Q. Are you very disappointed you haven't managed to put up a better showing here?

THOMAS MUSTER: I think I have played great tennis and I haven't managed to win those matches which were pretty close and could have gone the other way too. But I am not too disappointed. As I said, for me it is not the most important tournament of the year. This is past, and so I am looking forward to the next events and as I said, I started my '96 practice already two weeks ago and I am going to continue this until I am going to Australia.

Q. That first set point looked a little bit long. Did you --

THOMAS MUSTER: There are always bad calls. He had a few bad calls. I had a few bad ones. This is not deciding a match.

Q. You say "your season is over," so the Grand Slam Cup is an exhibition for you?

THOMAS MUSTER: Well, since there are no points, I guess it is an exhibition.

Q. Thomas, you lost to Michael Chang and to Jim Courier. What do you have to improve in your game to be better against that type of player on a fast surface?

THOMAS MUSTER: I have to serve better, definitely, because if you are not be able to return that well, you have to serve better. If you don't serve that well, you have to return like Agassi. That is very simple. So, I have certainly improved my returns. I mean, this is -- all the statistics have shown this. So, I think that this was a big improvement this year, but I think I have served better this year than I did here, but we are right now in a moment where I am trying to change my tactic a little bit on the serve and trying to get more placement and more speed on my serve and that is a difficult thing and it takes a while to improve those things. But if you play with the top eight players in the world I think you cannot miss four forehands in a row in an important game and that is the basic thing. If you do so, you need to have a big serve to get out of it.

End of FastScripts…

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