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DAVIS CUP - USA vs ZIMBABWE

February 6, 2000

Wayne Black

HARARE, ZIMBABWE

Q. How are you feeling, mate?

WAYNE BLACK: Disappointed.

Q. Fine?

WAYNE BLACK: Disappointed.

Q. But your body?

WAYNE BLACK: Yeah, I'm fine.

Q. Wayne, do you think playing three days in a row finally got to you?

WAYNE BLACK: No, I do it every Davis Cup tie. Physically, I'm fine. Mentally, I've been there before, and just today I don't know what happened. I just wasn't feeling the ball on my racket. I just haven't played that badly in a long time. I just -- I'm not taking anything away from him, I think he played a great match. But I think my first service percentage must have been down in the 20s.

Q. You played three rounds, qualifying rounds at the Aussie Open. You got through a couple rounds, you had a tough match against Pete Sampras, six rounds of doubles and a heavy doubles Finals as well. You got over here, practiced for three days, had a tough match against Andre, a tough five-setter. Don't you think you may be a little bit jaded after that? In the last two weeks you've played a lot of tennis.

WAYNE BLACK: Sure, sure. I have, but, you know, with that crowd behind you, you know, you should be able to get up and do it. But, you know, I don't think that was the problem today. I just -- maybe it was. Maybe I was a touch slow on the timing. I just couldn't time any balls today, even ground strokes. But, I mean, geez, I don't know. But he played good. I thought I got on top of him there when I was up 2-Love in the third, but he came back.

Q. Did you think you had it in control at -- I mean there was a tremendous momentum swing and the --

WAYNE BLACK: Yeah, a couple swings. Just, I thought he had lost a lot of confidence there, and I was going to try and stick with my game plan, which was just getting every ball back and running everything down. That's all I could do today because nothing else was working. So I just had to try and hang in there, just get as many balls as I could back. But, you know, he came up with the big shots.

Q. What aspect of his game hurt you the most?

WAYNE BLACK: His return serve.

Q. He was jumping on your second serve.

WAYNE BLACK: I gave him so many second serves to looked at, he just pumped all of them.

Q. You had a bad third set yesterday as well.

WAYNE BLACK: Well, yeah, that was due to McEnroe.

Q. There was no lapse of concentration that hit you?

WAYNE BLACK: Yeah, but he caused it for me.

Q. Could you talk about his behavior throughout this tie, sort of wrap it up? Did you think it was inappropriate?

WAYNE BLACK: Yeah, it was disgraceful. What he did yesterday was just -- I didn't want to talk about it yesterday but, I mean -- I'm serving 5-6, there was a shuffling with the balls, I thought there was a new ball. So I said, "Are these new balls" because they didn't look like new balls. He said, "You should be so lucky." And I just was just shocked. And then I didn't want to get in his face or anything because I didn't want to upset Kevin or the rest of the team, so I just carried on. You know, then the last -- missed the first serve, he jumped up and started clapping, told his boys, "Come on." Then we lost that point. Then he argued with the umpire for over a minute. This is 5-6 in the second set.

Q. John's response to that yesterday was basically how could you possibly say that when there's a crowd of 4,000, drums, really loud conditions, hostile play?

WAYNE BLACK: How can you say what?

Q. Well, that was John's basic response to your complaint. His statement was how can you complain about him complaining to the linespeople or saying something to you when the conditions were so hostile to his team.

WAYNE BLACK: Conditions were hostile to his team?

Q. Yes, that's right.

WAYNE BLACK: Geez. (Laughter.)

Q. Was he better today, Wayne? Better behavior in your mind?

WAYNE BLACK: Yeah, yeah. He was. But yesterday it was just a disgrace.

Q. He got a warning today, though.

WAYNE BLACK: Yeah, well, he shouted at the umpire. He probably -- these umpires are probably a little (inaudible) with them. They probably should have booed him off the court. They've got a great team full of a bunch of great guys on their team. I think if they don't win the Cup, I think it will be largely due to McEnroe.

Q. Do you think he's not helping their cause?

WAYNE BLACK: I don't know. I don't know what he says to them; maybe he is. But I'm sure that's got to put them off a little bit. If my captain was jumping around, shouting at every point, Chris was up a winner point, he went up and said something. I would go crazy if my captain did something like that.

Q. Wayne, not to be difficult but just to discuss this point, Chris just came in here and he said to us that he made an extra effort today to win it for John, as if John was a tremendous asset to the team. I don't mean to be difficult, but how would you respond to that?

WAYNE BLACK: Well, that's the behind-the-scenes that I don't know. Maybe he is great with them. But, I mean, just from the outside point of view that I'm looking at, you know, just -- he could end up giving the team a bad name from the likes of us and from the likes of the public.

Q. John also said that he would have liked to have played -- have you play him when he was in his prime. Is that something you would have liked to have done?

WAYNE BLACK: He would have liked to play me?

Q. Yes, he would have liked to have you play him when he had about -- you both have been in your prime.

Q. What he meant, if you thought that outburst of his when you played was bad, that you should have played him.

Q. Don't explain my question. Thank you.

Q. He said you should have seen me in my prime.

WAYNE BLACK: Meaning the outburst or being in the stands?

Q. The context was if you thought the outburst was bad yesterday, you should have seen him in his prime.

WAYNE BLACK: But he's not playing. He's a captain.

Q. All things considered, can you be positive about this result?

WAYNE BLACK: I guess so. I'm trying to be positive about it. I have to go out next week and face the TOUR again. It definitely is a great disappointment. We had a chance today. Byron -- how is Andre? Is he sick, do you know?

Q. Yes.

WAYNE BLACK: If Byron just got that third set, we could have -- I mean that's not great to win it like that, but we were close then. It's a great disappointment. I didn't come out with -- I didn't take the risks today that I could have taken, and, you know, I just played a bit tentative. Together with that, things didn't go my way from the start. I think it's just one of those days you have, I guess. But I'm going to try to look on the bright side of things, and I know it was a great three days, I guess, for the public and everybody watching. I hope it boosts the game a lot more in the country.

Q. Wayne, where do you go from here? You're going back on the TOUR. Is there any possibility or chance - I mean you and Kevin look quite comfortable out there, is there any chance you guys could hook up for a couple of tournaments on the TOUR? Are your schedules different?

WAYNE BLACK: Well, he's committed to Piet Norval for the year. It's tough for him to go back on his word. We were talking about it in December, but he had already committed to Piet Norval. I committed with somebody else, but that's fallen through and I'm going to try to keep my end with Andrew Kratzmann. We played in Adelaide a few weeks ago and we'll try to play the odd week, but I think as a permanent partner, he's going to play with Piet Norval.

Q. How did you do?

WAYNE BLACK: Second round. But next year, we'll try to do it with Davis Cup. He's a great player, easy to get along with and a great player.

Q. How much longer do you think Byron is going to be a member of the team?

WAYNE BLACK: I think three or four, five years maybe. He can at least, you know, singles-wise he could at least play three, three more years easily, and if he stays healthy. And doubles-wise, he could play until he's 36. Ricky's 35. So --

Q. Thirty-seven.

WAYNE BLACK: Ricky?

Q. He's 35.

WAYNE BLACK: So, you know, so five, six more years easily.

End of FastScriptsâ€¦.

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