Receiving a first round bye at three ATP Tour events this season, he lost his opening match at Sydney, Scottsdale and Indian Wells. Having won only three of eight matches played in 1999, Rafter believes his Davis Cup singles spot could be in jeopardy.
 
Q. Lleyton Hewitt earlier was talking about being the "Orange Boy" for the Australian Davis Cup team. Were you ever the "Orange Boy" for the Davis Cup team?
PATRICK RAFTER: I was an orange boy there for a lot of '95 and most of '96. It was very frustrating, sitting back there and doing that. I think Lleyton is in a position now where he has an opportunity to really play. It's great for him. He deserves it at the moment.

Q. Lleyton said he didn't actually peel any oranges. What exactly did you do when you were an "Orange Boy?"
PATRICK RAFTER: It's just a term, I guess. You just sit back there and watch the other guys play. At that stage, when I did it, we were losing a lot, so it was very frustrating sitting on the sidelines and watching that happen. Hopefully, that won't be the case this tie. But I think Lleyton is definitely in a position to play until, hopefully, I can pick up my form in Miami (at the Lipton Championships) and show some results to give (Davis Cup coach Tony Roche) Rochey and (Davis Cup captain John Newcombe) Newk a reason for me to play. I think Lleyton sees Davis Cup pretty similar to the rest of the Aussie boys - we all love playing. He's had the results on the board. Listen, if I go to Miami and go out pretty early again, I can't see myself taking a lot of confidence into Davis Cup. But, then again, Davis Cup turns things around for a lot of people. It has for me in the past.

Q. If you felt you were playing poorly, could you see yourself telling Newcombe and Roche that you think they should play Lleyton instead of yourself?
PATRIK RAFTER: No. No. I'm playing if they say I'm playing.

 Q. What goes through your mind when you see the top American players (Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi) skip playing Davis Cup?
PATRIK RAFTER: I don't know. I really don't know their reasoning for not playing. Maybe they have another reason. But the first thing that goes into my schedule is the Davis Cup. I guess we're brought up with different values. I'm not quite sure if that's got anything todo with it. I'd love to be able to speak on their behalf, but I really can't because I don't know the reason.

Q. You're playing Zimbabwe in the first round, a country that upset Australia in last year's first round tie held in Australia. This year you travel to Harare, how do you see that tie going in the Black brothers backyard?
PATRIK RAFTER: I only see winning, hopefully. I don't want to be sitting there at the end of the day and know that we've lost. There's not a worse feeling than losing Davis Cup. There's not a worse one.

Q. You have taken a lot of time off this year between the Australian Open and Scottsdale last week. What have you been doing?
PATRIK RAFTER: I did a little bit of tennis. I went skiing for a week, played golf for a week. I have not been doing a lot of training. The training, my tournaments, I actually will be playing steadily now all the way through pretty much till the end of the year. So I've had my fun. I was just sort of living life a little bit. As I said, I'd never been skiing (Whistler Mountain, BC) before. That's something I just felt like doing. Whether it was stupid or not, I don't  know. I just felt like enjoying myself a little bit, where I've been so sheltered and it's been tennis, tennis, tennis the whole time. I did mostly skiing, one or two days of snowboarding. It was a lot of powder. I felt like running down there and falling over a few times. Everyone told me not to do it (ski), but I'm here and I'm fit.

Q. Have you ever done any other extreme sport where you could get injured?
PATRIK RAFTER: Yeah, I've done Bungee jumping before. It was good. It was off a crane.