WIMBLEDON

June 28, 2000

Jan Michael Gambill

MODERATOR: Good evening. Jan-Michael Gambill. The floor is yours.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I think it was a little bit tough. May have showed there a little bit in the first set. I think my concentration waivered there in the first set. Had a bad game at 4-All, maybe it was at 4-5. After that I think I felt pretty confident and really played well, executed my serve and returns very well through the rest of the three sets.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: It's always tough for me to play Fabrice. He's beaten me twice last year in very tough matches. One was a five-setter, I think like we said yesterday. He's a tough guy to play. You never really know what he's going to do. He passes really well on the grass or any surface. He makes you play. If I make a lot of errors, I'm probably going to lose. I went out there knowing I needed to play smart tennis and needed to stick to the strategy.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I think so. I haven't seen the draw.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: That's exciting. I mean it means that two young guys are in the third round of Wimbledon. It's great. I'm excited to play him.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: Paul and I only played twice in juniors.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: Paul Goldstein would never pull gamesmanship in the match.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: No, I didn't. I was still playing.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: People were talking about it. I wasn't there.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: Tarango has done that before. Paul, I've never heard of it.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: Well, I think for me, I can't -- unless the guy -- it would have to be pretty outrageous for me to not break somebody's hand because that's the tradition. There's a lot of times where I don't want to shake the guy's hand, but he's going to get a handshake anyway. For myself, that wouldn't happen.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I've always liked Jeff. We've always gotten along.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I really couldn't say.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: It was definitely a concern, like I said yesterday, proving to myself that I can go out and play tough matches time and time again. I was a little disappointed in that first set. I knew I could really come out there and play well in the rest of the match. I knew he's going to have trouble breaking me, where I have a lot of opportunities to break him. I'm happy with my performance, the outcome of it. I think it's good. I'm excited to play my third round. This is very exciting. This is the only the second time I've made the third round of a Grand Slam. I'm really pumped about it. It's going to be fun.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I think Mark is a little bit of a different story. He's been known -- he's even a far crazier spender than I have been in the past (laughter). I'm pretty choosy. My money is very well-invested. The money I play with isn't a majority at all. My dad was a stockbroker for 15 years. We're not stupid with it. My passion for the Jaguars is simply that. I would never sell them. That's just not something that will happen. I'll die with those cars, and I love them. I collect them as a passion. I enjoy driving them. The experience that I can go back and go on a country drive or whatever, I can get away from everything, it's something I look forward to a lot. I still live at home. I'm have them in one place. We just built a garage for them. It's a little different. I don't buy a car because I think it's cool and that's that. I really stick with the marquis that I love and believe in. It's a little different story. But Mark has fun.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I tell you what, I don't have everything I want. They have a lot of cars I still want. Tell you what, I'd love one of their F-1 cars.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I don't know. There's a few more classics I would like to have. There's a few really neat classics, but you're looking at the C and D type race cars from the '50s that cost two million pounds. That's ludicrous really. I'm looking actually to build a house next year, which I'm looking forward to, am excited about.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: No. The house will be for me. No, we just finished a garage for them actually. It's a little different. It's fun.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I have six.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: That does depend on the success, my success, of course, how much space I guess I have in my garage. I can see having 12, something like that. I wouldn't sell any of the ones that I think are unique or are no longer produced, like my classics. The new ones, I would see trading in if a newer, better model came out.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I'm going to have to say it's me right now. No, I think I'd have to say Pete Sampras. I mean, he's in my opinion the best player that's ever played the game. I'll say it again. There's nobody that has better-looking strokes when he's at his top. He can go out there and just make a lot of guys look terrible when he was playing his best tennis.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I think I've earned -- none of the stuff that I have is anything that was given to me. I've earned it all. It's nothing that I'll ever take for granted. I still have a major desire to do well and to do well especially in the Slams. I'm finally finding out how to win in the Slams. It's a positive future.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: We have clay courts in Spokane. I go over to Mission Hills. I've been in Europe for a long time. I've been here since Rome. The clay court season transferred to the grass court season. I've just played the three events leading up to Wimbledon -- the two events, Queen's and Nottingham. That's all the practise.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: Right. Property right above our house where we already live.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: My dad coaches me, always has.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I'm going to design it with an architect. I'm looking to build a log-looking cabin-type of place.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I guess we'll have to find out. The house will take a couple years.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: We have four horses, five dogs. I think I have five cats right now, as well. My charity also deals with cats, as well. It's a zoological park in Spokane called Cattails. We have 45 big cats, tigers, lions and jaguars. I donated a lot of time and money, learned to be a trainer there, walk the tigers, baby feed them with the bottle.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: Learning to be a trainer. Taking classes and doing some extra stuff. I really like cats a lot and endangered species in general. It's close, two miles from our house. It's really Spokane Zoo. I'm looking to better it and better myself by learning from the cats.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: Right. It's true. We walk the cats. There was four baby tigers born about a year ago, we had a lot of hands-on with them. We've raised them. The keepers have raised them. You want to have a lot of hands-on because people can learn so much from these cats. You can have a lot of interaction. When you bring them up like that, they're declawed because they work a lot with people, they're very well-mannered. We walk them daily and bottle feed them. They're pretty big. It's getting a little scary.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: My love of the cats came first.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: Probably. I think it probably is. I always have had a love for cats. We've always had cats. We've always had animals. I just love animals. I think the cars is maybe a little different.

JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: We have five dogs. We have a Chihuahua, Siberian Husky, a Keeshond, a mutt and a dog that just appeared on our property not too long ago. I don't know what he is.

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