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PACIFIC LIFE OPEN

March 16, 2008

Alona Bondarenko

INDIAN WELLS, CALIFORNIA

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. How did you feel out there today?
ALONA BONDARENKO: Very good, thank you.

Q. This is the farthest you've gone in this tournament?
ALONA BONDARENKO: Yes.

Q. Are you feeling pretty good about where you are a at in the tournament now?
ALONA BONDARENKO: Yeah, for sure. I'm playing today very good, and I try to play the same next match and I'm really happy about it.

Q. Every year for I think nine years you keep going up in the rankings consistently. What do you have to do this year to keep going? I'm sure it gets harder as you get higher.
ALONA BONDARENKO: For sure, practice a lot. Practice and play well, and I don't know, try to concentrate on the tennis and on my game. Mostly that's it.

Q. What did you do very well today? What were some of the things you did the best?
ALONA BONDARENKO: I don't know. I just played my game. I tried to play without mistakes and concentrate, and that's it.

Q. How do you approach playing somebody like Mauresmo? She gives you lots of different variety and looks. What do you do in that instance?
ALONA BONDARENKO: We play last year, and end of the year, we play. It was -- I play with Mauresmo and I know her game.
I'm ready for this game, and just play my game.

Q. Can you talk a little bit about your results this year? Because they haven't been as good as last year in singles.
ALONA BONDARENKO: Yeah. I don't know. I start from Australia, but something not going well. We played doubles well, but not singles. We were playing more doubles next tournament, and Fed Cup, and then just little bit tired. Too much doubles and just want to concentrate about singles.

Q. So what do you have to do to get your singles form back to where you want it to?
ALONA BONDARENKO: Yeah, after -- when we play Antwerp, after Antwerp, we stayed home like one week. Next tournament in Dubai we didn't play doubles, and I just concentrate again on my singles. Doubles is really good. We played good together, but I want to play singles the same way: well.

Q. How long will you take off from doubles?
ALONA BONDARENKO: Two weeks.

Q. Two weeks?
ALONA BONDARENKO: Yeah.

Q. So you won't play doubles here or Miami?
ALONA BONDARENKO: No, we play here doubles. We didn't play Doha and Dubai.

Q. Okay. Gotcha.
ALONA BONDARENKO: And we're -- we play this tournament and Miami for sure.

Q. Do you hope to be as good as the Bryan brothers some day?
ALONA BONDARENKO: I hope so (laughter.)

Q. Do you find doubles to be more fun than singles?
ALONA BONDARENKO: Now, yes, because we understand each other really well, and our game, like, we play like together, not separate, two singles, just the doubles, and it's really good.

Q. Who is the leader on the court between you and Katerina?
ALONA BONDARENKO: I think me.

Q. You think?
ALONA BONDARENKO: Yeah.

Q. What does she think? Does she think it's her?
ALONA BONDARENKO: No. She says it's me. (laughter.)

Q. Do you two listen to each other pretty well?
ALONA BONDARENKO: Not pretty well, but we try more listen each other. Last year we were like play singles, Kata plays singles and me play singles and fight sometimes. But now we start to listen to each other more.

Q. It's likely that in the next round, if she wins, you'll be playing Sharapova. What are your thoughts on possible first matchup with her?
ALONA BONDARENKO: I don't know. I never play her before, and I know she play really well, and big serve and everything. We'll see what happens.

Q. What would you say Amélie's level was today compared to maybe in the past, especially from two years ago?
ALONA BONDARENKO: I don't play her two years ago. I don't know, really, but she -- she did many mistakes, I think. I don't know.

End of FastScripts

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