Jonas Bjorkman vs. Patrick Rafter (w)
Friday, August 7, 1998
Quarterfinals
Interview with Patrick Rafter
6-3, 6-2

SHARKO: Patrick Rafter is into his fifth ATP Tour semifinal of the season and it's also his first here at the du Maurier Open. And he also moves to 32 and 15 on the season.

QUESTION: In playing two matches today, what was that
like or was that a big strain?

RAFTER: Coming off my first match that I played I wasn't feeling the best after Wednesday's match, and the couple days' rest actually did me a lot of good. And often when you play a match in the morning and you go out and you play another match in the afternoon, well, it works for me that I play exceptionally
well the next match. So today I didn't have a long first round match, so that was good, so my energy was conserved for the next match.

QUESTION: If it had gone a third set, do you think it
may have started to wear on both of you guys as it went on?

RAFTER: I don't really think so. I still felt pretty good at the end and I know how fit Jonas is, so I don't think it would have made that big a deal.

QUESTION: You're obviously feeling pretty good about your play this week.

RAFTER: Yeah. It's good. It's come together. As I said, the first match I wasn't real happy with the form. It was like I did enough to get by, and just today to come out and play so well, I don't know, I feel good about that. Especially, you know, knowing that I've got a lot coming up and a big summer and a lot of things to defend, and it's a good start to the summer.

QUESTION: Can you talk a bit about your semifinal match
tomorrow with Tim Henman?

RAFTER: Tim has beat me the last two times, I think. Yeah. The last two times. So it should be a good match. I hope it's going to be a good match and I hope it goes my way, but Tim is obviously playing very well. He's had five good matches last week and he's on a bit of a roll here, so I'm going to have to play very well. Let's just hope and wait and see.

QUESTION: When you say you didn't feel too good after
the first match, it wasn't physically or anything, it was more
with your form?

RAFTER: No. It was more physically. More physically more than anything. And when I don't move well, I don't play well.

QUESTION: You weren't sick or anything?

RAFTER: No, not really. Just felt very fatigued. Just felt like now I've got a lot of that energy back having the day off yesterday.

QUESTION: It's funny. Earlier in the week you were
talking about how Sampras sometimes doesn't like the timing of
this event, but for you it was fine. You said maybe a couple of
matches and that's great where Pete could maybe look at playing
five or six all the way through and here you are into the weekend
as well. I was just wondering does that fit into your plans quite
nicely?

RAFTER: Yes. Definitely, because next week I might not
do so good. As I said, Pete could do very well again. The
chances of him doing well again next week are probably still very
high, whereas, for me I feel like who knows what might happen.

QUESTION: Are you actually playing four weeks in a row of tennis?

RAFTER: Seven. Five before. I played in Los Angeles
last week, this one and three others.

QUESTION: And obviously that's not a burden.

RAFTER: That's what I did last year. I'm just hoping
it'll work the same way.

TRANSCRIPT PROVIDED BY:

Kelly McKee Dorsey
McKee Court Reporting, Inc.
800-894-8322
912-232-8322
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