AUSTRALIAN OPEN

January 17, 2001

Todd Martin

TODD MARTIN: I like that.

TODD MARTIN: Yeah, I usually do. You know, it does get your blood flowing a little bit more, and I think I've never felt like one has hurt me considerably. It's when you play one and then your next one is just as tough or close to or even tougher, and then it sort of snowballs on you. But if you can nip it in the bud, I think it helps a lot. It proves to you for that week that you've -- that you're up to it and that, you know, your forehand and your backhand might stink on the day, the other guy might outplay you, but if you get through a five-set match, you know you can fight through pretty much anything.

TODD MARTIN: No, I did not start very well. However, I felt like I was able to control three points in the first set. I knew he was an aggressive baseline player, and I knew that he was not your typical South American or clay court player. He hit every ball as hard as he could, it seemed, and most of them went in. And, you know, I was down a set and a break in the second set twice and, you know, somehow I think, you know, I changed up a few things strategically and -- but not, you know, drastically. I think he started missing a few first serves, which was a big key. He didn't miss a first serve for the first set and a half, it didn't seem.

TODD MARTIN: Oh, in the fifth set. It was love-15 and he missed a first serve and I turned around to make sure the ball kid had picked up the ball and to make sure I was ready to play. By the time I turned around, he was still hunched over holding his shoulder and, you know, he didn't say anything when he missed the serve. The serve was still very big. It wasn't -- it didn't look like he, you know, miss-hit it or anything. But it was in the back of the shoulder, which is a decelerator, and I thought he played pretty well afterwards despite not being able to serve the way he had.

TODD MARTIN: Oh, they're definitely slower than last year. I think they're still too quick. But I think they're too quick for the men. I think the women, I think, are going to have a lot of opportunities to play tennis here. The men, there's too many guys who can hit 200k serves. And when the court's this quick, you don't always get a great -- even if the ball's towards your racquet or towards one of your strike zones, it never seems to be so easy to lay the racquet on the ball. And once the point starts, the court plays fine because the guys move so well. But in a reactionary situation, I think the court's a little too quick, or the conditions, a combination of the ball and the court. But I would hate to see the ball changed. I think it's always best to dilly-dally around with the court.

TODD MARTIN: My activity was minimal.

TODD MARTIN: No, you know, first and foremost it was because I was unhappy with the way that my tennis had been going. I made the decision in, more or less in Toronto in the summer to hang it up after the Olympics, to give myself a little bit of a break mentally more than anything else, a break physically also, an opportunity to train and prepare well for this year. And then, you know, there were a few sort of bonuses. And to not be real -- have things real hectic before the wedding and to have some opportunity to -- opportunities to spend time with some good friends of mine before the wedding and my now wife, it was -- it turned out to be actually after last week, I wasn't sure if it was the right decision but I did plenty of work last year to have better results than I did. And I felt like I've had a substantial amount of work leading up into this event, and it doesn't always get realized immediately. So hopefully, you know, hopefully one, Friday is better than today, and hopefully there's a Monday for me. But more than anything else, the work over the three months that I took off I'm hoping will benefit me throughout the course of 2001.

TODD MARTIN: No.

TODD MARTIN: Well, there's a few necessities. One, I need to be enjoying myself. Two, I need to feel stimulated enough and that I'm still learning about this game, about myself, about other people. And there's a part of me after last year, after a good part of the first half of last year, there's a part of me now that sees that there is a little bit more of a need for some success than I used to think so. You know, I used to be very -- I am still pretty idealistic, but I used to think that I would be dragged off the court unless I just wasn't learning or having fun. Now, I understand that there is going to be a scenario -- or there is a scenario possibly that inspires me to stop playing due to lack of feeling competitive with my peers.

TODD MARTIN: Well, and I'm involved in other aspects of life, too. And personally, tennis is not No. 1, it's not No. 2, I'm debating whether it's number three or number four. But when I get out on the court, it is No. 1 for me, and the feeling I get when I am on the court, I don't think will wane. The feeling I get when I'm in airports or, you know, when I'm at home and I have a six o'clock flight the next morning and I still have to pack my bags, that's different. But I'm a big believer in all the bad is acceptable as long as the good is good, and right now the good is good.

TODD MARTIN: Well, yes. I think initially I felt like if the new captain was amenable to being assisted by anybody that I would be interested in fulfilling that opportunity. But I'm starting to realize two things: (1) I think Patrick's very well equipped, much better equipped to do his job than I thought originally. (2) I think it's going to be much more difficult for anybody who's still competing to have an official part, title of the Davis Cup tie. Now if it were to be a sporadic thing like if Patrick chose to have somebody help him, if he had somebody help him the first tie and then a different guy to help him the second tie, depending on the surface or the availability of the would-be coach, if I was not part of the team, if I wasn't available -- if I wasn't chosen to play, then I think it might be a little bit easier to go and have one more guy to practice against, one more guy to look at and also a little bit different of a voice than strictly a coach. But right now, I would hedge away from doing that despite my initial thoughts. My initial thoughts came during those three months that I was sitting around thinking that I was going to tear down the world when I started again.

TODD MARTIN: I think the event of Davis Cup deserves as much focus, attention and care as any aspect of our sport. I will always say the Grand Slams are probably more important, but that being said, you need -- we need to put a lot of energy into the Davis Cup. I don't think it's a perfect schedule. I don't think it's a perfect scheme for a competition. However, there is only so much that can be done and I'm determined to be a part of it for as long as I'm around regardless of whether the ITF takes the bull by the horns and does something about it.

TODD MARTIN: I'm much more of the inclination that if we change, it should stay every year. But it should be a condensed draw. It's just -- and, you know, the only year that I would think about having it not be is during the Olympics, during the Olympic year. But, you know, the event's there. The event's going to be there a lot longer than any one of us is going to be here, and that's not true about some of our tournaments, about some of our smaller tournaments. Some are going to be around for a long time, but, you know, others that some of my colleagues choose to play aren't going to be around. And I would think that, at least for me, it's much more important to be a part of tennis' history and to compete in what is historic and prestigious.