US OPEN


September 4, 1998


Serena Williams

U.S. OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP, Flushing Meadows, New York


Q. How are you feeling?

SERENA WILLIAMS: Good. All right, no one has any questions?

Q. I have got one. You were able to beat her twice this year, what did you
not do tonight that you were able to do in the other --

SERENA WILLIAMS: Today my serving was off. I couldn't serve at all, and
second set I did serve pretty well. But I don't know, my serve just wasn't
there tonight. So --

Q. Was that the difference in the match or did she raise her game from the
time you played her previously?

SERENA WILLIAMS: I think ultimately it was the serve, yeah. I couldn't hold
and completely break -- broke down in the end.

Q. What do you take away from the experience of this year's US Open that
might help you for your game down the road?

SERENA WILLIAMS: Well, I just know that I need to work on -- I need to work
on a lot of things and, yeah, just need to be more -- I can't say be more
serious because I think I am pretty serious all the time. So.... I just need
to take out that everyone is out to win.

Q. Are you surprised at the outcome tonight? You seem pretty obviously
disappointed, but are you surprised that she was able to beat you?

SERENA WILLIAMS: I am not surprised, but I never did expect to lose. I threw
out the whole match even though I was down even on a matchpoint. I just never
expected to lose. I just -- it didn't hit me until it was over.

Q. When you broke the string in the fifth game of that final set, you lost
that game. Did it have any effect on you changing rackets?

SERENA WILLIAMS: No, it did not. The rackets usually don't have an effect on
the way you play. Usually it is the way you play that has most effect.

Q. She said everything as far as what happened last year is all part of the
past, no problems. Do you feel the same way as far as Irina goes?

SERENA WILLIAMS: I mean, no one really remembers that anymore.

Q. By "no one" you mean yourself and Venus, or you mean no one, the public?

SERENA WILLIAMS: That it is just so in the past. It is just -- only people
that remember it are those who dwell in the past and can't get over it and
might have problems. Those are the only people who remember it. Do you
remember it?

Q. I remember it. It is pretty hard to forget.

SERENA WILLIAMS: You are one of those people.

Q. I dwell on the past. I love history.

SERENA WILLIAMS: Do you have problems?

Q. Yeah.

SERENA WILLIAMS: Yes? No?

Q. I have problems.

SERENA WILLIAMS: Not that you are aware of? Coming out of the closet? Did
anyone do their homework? When you came here next time, I wanted -- I see you
are looking down? It has been two days, you know.

Q. It has been a rough two days.

SERENA WILLIAMS: Not dictionary around anywhere? You could look at the
computer. I am very disappointed.

Q. Can you put us out of our misery?

SERENA WILLIAMS: I think that you guys -- I am not the encyclopedia here. I
am very disappointed. You guys all get Fs. I always wanted to say that.

Q. When you see a drop shot coming over the net, your back is still on the
baseline. What goes through your mind? How do you tell yourself that you are
not going to miss that? Seems like you run down everything?

SERENA WILLIAMS: Usually when I see a drop shot I usually smile to myself
because I know I am going to make it and I usually think I am going to win
the point. I love running down dropshots. I like running for it like that.

Q. Second set, at that point seemed she was just letting the games go. What
was going through your mind?

SERENA WILLIAMS: (Laughs) Well, I think I have played better in the second
set and I was -- I see someone over there looking --

Q. I got the dictionary?

SERENA WILLIAMS: I stuck with my plan the second set, but I kind of -- she
played a little better in the second set and my serve, it was really kicking
in the second set also. So it was after that, I guess, it went away again. It
wasn't there in the first and the third.

Q. Ghetto: A section of a city in which a minority group lives because of
poverty or social pressure. Websters.

SERENA WILLIAMS: That is Websters --

Q. Official.

SERENA WILLIAMS: You are supposed to look in an encyclopedia.

Q. We can't cart those around with us.

SERENA WILLIAMS: A ghetto was -- it was actually a German word that was
derived from when the Jewish people, they lived -- they actually took the
Jewish people out of their homes, because the Germans wanted to be on a
pedestal, compared to the Jews and they took them out of their homes and they
just put them in a community and it was the community they called it -- they
named it a ghetto. It was named that because there was no sanitation area,
facilities to use inside or anything. So they named it the ghetto. They named
the facilities the ghetto and they actually had roads that led from ghettos
to ghettos and the Jews could not leave the ghettos. So, sometimes when you
guys say: How does it feel being born in the ghetto - that is -- I think of
that definition. So after that, Americans start using ghettos as a place of
bad -- just a bad area because that is what it originally was. That wasn't
that hard; was it?

Q. That goes back to the middle ages. That is not just from the 20th century.

SERENA WILLIAMS: That was World War II.

Q. Goes back way before that.

SERENA WILLIAMS: Okay, we can talk. You have your information and I have mine.

Q. Way before that.

SERENA WILLIAMS: Okay.

Q. Absolutely a lot of history there.

SERENA WILLIAMS: Anymore questions?

Q. Curious if you look back at your Grand Slams --

SERENA WILLIAMS: I have got the answers.

Q. What is your feeling overall about your Grand Slam season?

SERENA WILLIAMS: I am very disappointed this year because I feel that I could
have won and at least a Grand Slam this year, especially this one particular,
but I obviously didn't do it. I guess I have to start next year.

Q. Venus give you any specific advice going into this about what the Open is
like?

SERENA WILLIAMS: No, I was here last year so was able to see what the Open
was like.