DAVIS CUP - USA vs ZIMBABWE

February 4, 2000

Wayne Black

Q. Wayne, I just want to find out from you, was he too tough?

WAYNE BLACK: Obviously, he's a very tough player. I had to have all my guns firing out there today, and, you know, I was -- I mean I played well; I won't deny that. But I definitely had to take a lot of risks out there to beat someone like Andre. It just didn't go my way today.

WAYNE BLACK: Yeah, a few guys were sleeping out there, some real clear calls I felt went against me. That's the way of the game, though.

WAYNE BLACK: No, no. You get used to that stuff. Stuff happens every match you play, bad calls. You just have to try to argue with the umpire and hopefully he'll watch the lines a bit closer and just look out for another bad call.

WAYNE BLACK: I guess maybe there was one or two points on my serve that I lost in the first set possibly. I think I played one forehand that went the other way. I just didn't move my feet. That could have been an important point.

WAYNE BLACK: No, I got a good start to the second set. I knew against Andre you can't let him run away with it. With the match, you have to hold your first serves of each set and try and hang in there. So, yeah, I had a kind of good start.

WAYNE BLACK: Just taking the ball on the rise and having it on the run. I mean, actually his returns as well. Just taking my serves so early. My serve let me down a little bit today. But most of it's his fault, though, because there's nowhere to serve to the guy really. You have to have someone like Sampras, who serves blast it past him. I definitely don't have that. So I really had to give him a mixed bag in my serve and try and keep him guessing. Otherwise, he just jumps -- and jumps all over it.

WAYNE BLACK: Maybe. Could have used it a bit more. I wasn't feeling that confident with it either. I've been practicing all week, but it just didn't feel like a good groove. The last time I played him, I took him to three sets and I was just kick serving him down 90 percent of the time.

WAYNE BLACK: It's definitely the serve. A small guy like me, it's definitely the serve.

WAYNE BLACK: Yeah, it's fantastic. Davis Cup means the world to me. So something of this magnitude is just a dream come true. Just trying to get the wins on the board; that's all.

WAYNE BLACK: Oh, yeah. I'll be very hungry for the doubles.

WAYNE BLACK: Pretty typical.

WAYNE BLACK: Yeah, that would be nice.

WAYNE BLACK: That would be very nice.

WAYNE BLACK: Yeah, every match.

WAYNE BLACK: They're fairly loyal.

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