INTERVIEW WOMEN MASTER 1999

(Translation from Diario La Verdad (12/12/1999))

“I don’t understand Arantxa and Conchita’s privileges”

Question: You will be looking forward to the year 2000.

Answer: Yes, because this season hasn’t been very good for me talking about results. I’m going to benefit from that because next year I won’t have to defend many points and I’m working very hard to improve my current ranking. The one I have now doesn’t correspond with my possibilities. My goal is to be top 15 at the end of next year.

Q. Do you bother the privilege’s situation of Arantxa and Conchita in this Master being played in Murcia?

A. It’s logical that because of their ranking and career they have got some privileges; that’s something that the rest of the players assume, although we don’t share some situations. Firstly, we should play eight players and Arantxa and Conchita also from the first round. If they are in semifinals, they benefit from, specially, the logical tiredness that their rivals can have, who have played the day before. Then, from a economic point, they earn almost a 75% between them and the rest for the other four players. I insist that I don’t want to take them away from their merits, but it isn’t fair.

Q. Is there among the rest of the players a kind of syndrome Arantxa-Conchita?

A. Not at all. Who of us can deny their category as tennis players and the honours they have given to Spain? What they have done is what all of us aspire to doing one day. There isn’t any syndrome, it’s only that we play with a clear disadvantage.

Q. How do you value a priori this Master?

A. It has actually been all of a sudden. The players haven’t come here 100% because we are in the middle of our preseason. All of us are preparing for the first tournaments of the season which begin in January and specially for the Australian Open, a Grand Slam. In particular, I’ll play the Goald Coast tournament, later Sydney to end in Melbourne with the Australian Open, where I expect to improve the third round I reached last year.

Q. Do you feel Arantxa and Conchita’s successor?

A. There’s a group of seven or eight players qualified to achieve great goals, although to achieve what they have achieved isn’t easy. I would have liked to be in the foreground, like them, but I’m 20 and I still have a lot to demonstrate.

Q. You succeeded internationally.

A. That eliminatory against Germany was the most exciting moment of my sports career. I can’t explain with words the feelings I had when I saw myself playing for Spain, with the responsability of substituing Arantxa and triumphing, thanks to Conchita’s help.

    This young Canarian player filled with enthusiasm Spaniards when she had to play instead of Arantxa, who couldn’t play, playing the Fed Cup against Germany (singles and doubles with Conchita Martínez). She succeeded and demanded a place under the sun for the very good Spanish tennis players who aren’t called nor Arantxa nor Conchita. She is currently 39th-ranked in the WTA