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Flash Quotes

General Quotes

About the match:

Kristine Drakich (CAN):

"I couldn't side out.  Off of me they must have scored four or five of their points.  I didn't have any angles; I was just not doing a good job.  A couple times we had conversion for game point and we were trying to be a little bit too precise."

Guylaine Dumont (CAN):

"For sure we played better than the other matches.   We served well.  We got a couple of aces at the beginning and during the match.  That's life."

About adjustments the Canadian team made:

Kristine Drakich (CAN):

"I  made it easy for them to make an adjustment.   I  had like two-thirds of the court to score on, and I couldn't.  They just served me and set up on the deep cross court, and I just couldn't do anything but hit it at them."

About rallying from a 14-10 deficit to win the match:

Eva Celbova (CZE):

"When the score wasn't good for us (we didn't lose confidence).  But we would like to win all the time.  We are happy."

Sona Dosoudilova (CZE):

"I  hope that it will be the start to the next tournament.  We will play better, and we will win."

About adjustments the Czech Republic team made:

Sona Dosoudilova (CZE):

"We know that the Canadian team doesn't train together.  We started to serve only to one player (Drakich).  I think it was the reason that we won."

About the match:

Lisa Arce (USA):

"We struggled and we weren't playing our game, and that was really frustrating.  We kinda went into robotic mode in that second game where it was either do or die, and thank God we responded."

About how USA team rallied from a 10-3 deficit in game two:

Lisa Arce (USA):

"I wasn't setting all that well.  I was just self-setting.  I was trying to go with that, and they were keying in, serving Holly (McPeak) really deep, and setting up a defense on her.  So I thought if I could get over in two and set her at the same time, mix it up, they would get off-balance. "

Holly McPeak (USA):

"They put some pressure on me, they were serving some good floaters. And Kerri Pottharst made some good blocks.  But I need to side-out better to beat that team."

About rally-scoring format in game three:

Lisa Arce (USA):

"We don't have the experience of playing rally scoring very much.  I remember when they made the transition in indoor, at the fifth game, you'd have a great match going, even games, 2-2, and then you have a rally-scoring game.   It seems like you're trying to make it a weaker game for the players to play.   We don't practice it all that much."

About their strategy to serve to Holly McPeak:

Kerri Pottharst (AUS):

"Lisa Arce is playing extremely well at the moment.   Our plan was obviously to serve Holly (McPeak) a lot of balls.  We watched her play yesterday; she didn't look too comfortable.  We wanted to make her uncomfortable today, and also pull off the net and dig a lot of their hits.  But she's a great player, and she'll keep us out there for a long time.  I think that worked really well, but it's mainly because Lisa's (Arce) playing so well."

About the match:

Pauline Manser (AUS):

"We came out really strong and played confidently, but they're a tough team so they're going to come back and get a few points and a few times there, we were thinking, 'ooh,'  they were starting to come back on us and we had to do something extra, and we didn't really stay very patient at times.  When we got a little bit anxious they just came back and fired back with point after point.  At the end of each set, we sat down and really spent the five minutes to calm down and get re-focused and come out strong again."

About making a statement:

Kerri Pottharst (AUS):

"Pauline and I started this season together in Brazil and finished second. We're extremely happy with our new partnership, and since then we've had what we feel are poor finishes, a couple of sevenths and a ninth.  So we're still learning and I think for us to come in such an important tournament and make the final and beat two of the U.S. teams on U.S. soil is really encouraging for our team and for our future."

Italian quotes interpreted by Rita Crockett

About the match:

Annamaria Solazzi (ITA):

"We made a lot of mistakes on the free balls, and against the Brazilians you cannot do that."

Laura Bruschini (ITA):

"Our service wasn't as good, and it's important to have a good serve.  Also, the Brazilians are really good in this type of sand."

About Brazil's strengths:

Annamaria Solazzi (ITA):

"They have a really hard serve and for us that's hard because they get the ball up, and we can't go on and make a good set and then play the ball down hard. The Brazilians have a hard serve, then they have (good) defense.   They get any ball from anywhere, and they have good control once they get it up, so they can have a nice set up and can attack strong."

About improvement in the tournament:

Laura Bruschini (ITA):

"Before we came here we had negative results.  We didn't play well before this tournament.  We could build up our confidence here, and every game we've become more confident."

About the match:

Adriana Behar (BRA):

"We think they played very well and we didn't.   We made a lot of mistakes, and Shelda has an injured knee.  For us it was a hard match.  At the end of each set we scored some points, making service, and also (played well) on defense. For us it was a hard match."

"That match was strange because Shelda was not in her best (condition), but I think that we needed a good service (to win), but this (serving) is our (strength).  Normally we make about five aces a match, so for us it (six aces) is a high point."

About gold-medal match Sunday vs. Australia:

Adriana Behar (BRA):

"We have to serve, we have to pass, and we have to (play) defense.  We have to set and to hit well to win.  We know they are a good team.  They are so strong.  For tomorrow I'm sure it will be a good match.   For tomorrow we have to be 100 percent to win."

About being surprised that the U.S. did not advance to play Brazil in gold-medal match:

Adriana Behar (BRA):

"We know that Holly (McPeak) and Lisa (Arce) are a great team.  They are strong, they are very good, but this can happen. It was a surprise (but) it's normal.  When we play, someone has to lose and someone has to win.  For us, they are our friends; we have a good relationship with them, and we'd have liked to play them for first.  But we have to play (Australia), and they have to play (Italy for the bronze medal)."

About the match:

Karolyn Kirby (USA):

"(We were) very flat.  We knew that Germany is a very slow playing team.  We kinda went neck and neck with them in the very beginning, then we realized we had to pay attention to our tempo on our side of the court.  And we did that in spurts.  I think we just made some unforced errors.  We didn't pass as well as we should have, probably, and put the ball away."

Liz Masakayan (USA):

"Their tempo is very slow, and we knew that we needed to set our own pace which we didn't do quite as well as we had hoped.  That was an awful game by both teams. It was a good game because it was close, but (there were) so many unforced errors, nothing really spectacular; the pace was really slow.  It's probably the best game I've seen them (Germany) play in the tournament."

About the lack of support for the U.S. program:

Karolyn Kirby (USA):

"(It was a) bad performance entirely, I guess, by the U.S. (teams), which goes back to what we were talking about when we started these press conferences.    We've got to have federation support, we have to have a domestic tour.  It's really not surprising, these results.  Unless we have that kind of support and interest from our federation and our country, we're going in debt trying to play, trying to keep up with these other countries."

"Obviously the (1996) Olympics were a letdown for the U.S. (fifth place for Holly McPeak and Nancy Reno). At one time we were on top of the world in this sport, and now we're realizing that other countries are doing things a little bit better than we are.  Unless we get serious interest from our home ground I don't know what's going to happen in the future.  It's just going to get worse."

About the match:

Maike Freidrichsen (GER):

"It was important that we served tough at the end.   At the middle of the game we were a little bit down, and then the serving was getting better again.  We just tried to serve Liz (Masayakan because Karolyn) Kirby was really strong today. "

Danja Musch (GER):

"It's always good to finish a tournament with a win.   It's nice to leave New York with fifth instead of sixth."