THE MODERATOR: Questions for Taylor, please.

Q. How are you feeling?
TAYLOR DENT: I'm feeling good, you know. I'm not looking forward to my ice bath later, but good right now.

Q. Ice bath why? Physically, dinged up?
TAYLOR DENT: Just good for the legs, good for me. It helps my legs recover, so just do it every night.

Q. Not anything specific?
TAYLOR DENT: Oh, no, it's just to get the legs fresh and make sure I'm covering all the bases.

Q. Pretty self‑contained on your return games. Is that part of your new game these days?
TAYLOR DENT: I think I've been playing that way for a little while now. Probably, probably the past year maybe; maybe more. Just my theory on return games is making the guy play as much as possible, and if I get a short ball I'm going to come in and make him pass me. That was pretty much the play today. But, God, he hit a lot of winners and was playing really well. I had to track down a lot of balls.

Q. Weren't very self‑contained on that matchpoint. Is that because you didn't want that to go to a fifth set?
TAYLOR DENT: Yeah, no, I mean, I didn't want it going to a fourth set. It was a bit disappointing losing that third set in the way that I did. But, you know, it was getting ‑‑ it was getting a little heated out there between us as well. He was saying "vamos" on a couple of my double‑faults and easy misses. That fired me up a little bit more. I was pumped out there.

Q. Perfect preparation for your next match?
TAYLOR DENT: Yeah, sure. I'm ready. Bring it on (smiling).

Q. Thinking ahead to that next match, Lleyton is up two sets to Love and a break. You've had some success against him. Is this your biggest opportunity, playing in front of your home country?
TAYLOR DENT: Yeah, I think it's a good opportunity because the courts are pretty quick here compared to everywhere else. But it's going to be a tough match no matter what the conditions. I'm going to have to go out there and be very patient, not give him too many free points. And, you know, if I'm solid and taking care of my serve, I like my chances out there.

Q. When it comes to that kind of celebration, is there a line still that you shouldn't cross, or really guys are yelling for a double‑fault, Lleyton has said "C' mon," somebody's mistake. Do you allow yourself to get ticked at this point or does it happen so often...
TAYLOR DENT: Bottom line, everybody's trying to win out there. They're trying to do whatever they can to win out there. I guess there is some court etiquette amongst the players. Cheering on double‑faults and easy miss shots, I wouldn't call that super sportsmanship. So I don't think too many of the guys would. I don't even think Lleyton would, I don't know. Maybe he's got something else to say about that. But it's all part of the game. If it bothers you, then, you know, you better pray you don't play against those guys because there's a few of them out there.

Q. When you're making that ridiculous shot he hit ‑‑
TAYLOR DENT: That was too good. I saw that one other time a little bit different. Sabatini hit a between‑the‑legs‑lob winner. I couldn't believe it. I was this close to the net, a foot away from the net. I thought he was going to rip it, I wanted to angle it off. I saw the thing go up, I go, "Oh, that's too good."

Q. Specifically with Lleyton Hewitt, have you had problems with him as so many of the other players have?
TAYLOR DENT: Not really. I understand that Lleyton, you know, needs to do that to play well or thinks he needs to do that to play well. That's his job, to play well out there. So, you know, I just ‑‑ I don't even think about it. I expect it. So if he hits a good shot or if I miss a shot on a big point, you know, and it happens, it's great. I just got to play the next point. Doesn't really affect the next point too much.

Q. With his return of serve, do you sometimes subconsciously, without even thinking about it, find yourself induced to going for a little too much because he returns so well?
TAYLOR DENT: I think you find that against ‑‑ well, for me, against all of the good returners. I bet you Rafter was the same way, all the serve‑and‑volleyers are a little bit the same way because, you know, your serve is your approach shot. And against guys that return as well as Hewitt, Agassi, Nalbandian, there's a few of them, you know, you try and put a little bit more on it which is, I think, a good thing. You get a little bit more margin as well when you're swinging hard, more spin on the ball.

Q. Is the best serve a body serve?
TAYLOR DENT: Best serve against him is just variety. Is being able to hit my spots and spread them out, keep him guessing. But, yeah, body serve is definitely one of them.

Q. How long have you been working with your dad?
TAYLOR DENT: No, dad and I stopped working a while ago.

Q. Who's the latest?
TAYLOR DENT: Oh, I'm just, you know, traveling with my buddy at the moment. His name is Tom Lloyd. We're basically like brothers. We've known each other since we were nine years old. He just got out of college.

Q. Is he a tennis player?
TAYLOR DENT: Yeah, he's very good. He played for U of A. He always beats me up when I play second‑serve games.

Q. You don't play much doubles, but you probably know that the doubles players are in a lawsuit with the ATP. There's no particular reason why you should care one way or another, but do you have any feelings about that?
TAYLOR DENT: I do. I think it's ‑‑ I mean, I don't know if I'm going to put my foot in my mouth or not because I don't know what was said today. But I think it's a shame that doubles is getting the boot. I just think that's part of tennis. When I think about tennis, I think about, you know, McEnroe, all these guys, playing singles and doubles. But, again, I can be devil's advocate, I can play devil's advocate. The tournaments are saying these guys are costing us a whole bunch of money. At the end of the day, sports are a business. So I feel like it would be a shame to get rid of doubles, but I guess it's on the doubles players' responsibilities to find a way to make it lucrative.

Q. You say costing the tour money?
TAYLOR DENT: Costing the tournament.

Q. Doesn't it also cost the tournament money when it shells out $100,000 to bring in a player that should be playing there anyway?
TAYLOR DENT: If they should be playing there anyway, then the answer is yes. Some of these players don't have those weeks in their schedule. The tournament feels like that they will, uhm, make the tournament a bigger draw if they get so many of a certain tier player in their tournament. So it gets to a stage where they really do need those players there.

Q. You got to find some way to prove that you're getting let's say $100,000 worth of value into bringing into a Top 10 player?
TAYLOR DENT: I'm probably not the best businessman to be talking to, but I'm sure their sponsors are very happy to keep their sponsorship if they have a certain amount of high echelon players in their tournament. So it makes getting their sponsorships a lot easier. Again, I may be overstepping my bounds. I don't really know the inner deals that tournament directors work with sponsors and all that stuff, but it looks better for a tournament when they can go to the sponsors and they say, "Yeah, we have this guy here, he's Top 5, No. 1 in the world," whatever.

Q. Don't you think the LA tournament would be a difficulty if Andre hadn't been there, considering everything that went on?
TAYLOR DENT: Yeah, no, it was a shame, everything that, yeah, did happen. But, you know, that's part of sports. It does happen. But LA tournament's such a great venue, Bob Kramer does such a good job that, you know, the tournament survived.

Q. You say there's a few players out there that maybe cross that line of on‑court etiquette. You say that Lleyton does it sometimes. Are you saying he sometimes crosses that line?
TAYLOR DENT: Oh, well, I'm sure that everybody in the room knows that he's kind of, you know ‑‑ he gets in your face a little bit, but that's his style of game. So if you can ‑‑ again, like I said, there really is no clear‑cut line. There is a gray area. You're competing to win the match out there. I guess if that's the line, you're competing to win the match, he never crosses the line because that's what he does. But if you have a little bit of an etiquette saying, "Okay, you can't really get in the other guy's face that much when he hits a double‑fault, or if he misses an easy ball," then absolutely. He's in the gray area right there which is, you know, like I said, his deal. He's won a lot of matches doing that. If I was his coach, I'd say keep doing that.

Q. You don't have a problem with that?
TAYLOR DENT: No, you just got to look the other way. As soon as you try to start controlling what the other players are doing, you're going to find yourself pretty frustrated. You just got to go out there and do your thing. And at the end of the day, I'm not going to lose the match because he's cheering on my bad shots. That's not going to cause me to lose the match. What's going to cause me to lose is his great play or my bad play. You just have to go out there and go about your business.

Q. What's the worst match you've had in that sense, players glaring at each other across the net, not happy with your opponent's attitude?
TAYLOR DENT: I've actually had a few. I must have the worst Alzheimer's ever. I have the worst memory for that. Oh, actually this year Wimbledon. I was playing Dick Norman, first round of Wimbledon, and it was just that. His box was like three or four people, and they were just heckling me, they were cheering my double‑faults and they were just being obnoxiously loud. So I lost the third set. I was up two sets to Love, I lost the third set, and I let them know that I didn't like what was going out on there.

Q. What did you say?
TAYLOR DENT: It was heat of the moment. I can't remember what I said exactly. I don't believe there was profanity in there because I'm a gentleman.

Q. You let Dick know or the box know?
TAYLOR DENT: I let the box know and then on the change of sides I let Dick know. I said that, you know, it looks bad on him, with his box doing that.

Q. What did he say?
TAYLOR DENT: More or less those words.

Q. What did he say?
TAYLOR DENT: Then he kind of just looked at me, asked me to say what I said again. I clarified it, and it was on from then on the whole match (laughing). We were saying one thing or another on every changeover after that.

Q. Really?
TAYLOR DENT: Oh, yeah, it was fun.

Q. Give us a taste?
TAYLOR DENT: Well, you know, you can't delve into that. I don't know, you know, just ‑‑ he would just say, "Feel what it's like being a European coming to the US Open, getting heckled all the time," something like that. I said, you know, "What am I going to say to that? I said you got to be kidding me? You've got three people cheering for you here, just heckling me the whole time, and you're talking about 15,000 people?" It was just, you know, there may have been a profanity here and there, so...

Q. Did it carry into the locker room?
TAYLOR DENT: Actually, after, after the match, I think that was just his impression of a hard‑fought match. Getting into it like that. That wasn't my impression at the time, but we go up, shake hands, I don't know what's going on, you know, I'm up there like, "What he's going to do?" He's a big guy, I don't know what to do. He says, "Great fight," like this. I was just taken aback. I was just like, "Wow, okay, good match, thanks." He's a big fella. I didn't know what was going to happen there.

Q. Have you ever had words with anybody in the locker room? Has it carried over afterwards?
TAYLOR DENT: Uhm, I've waited in the locker room a couple of times for a few players and have been anxious to have words, but nothing's ever kind of developed apart from that. You know, after, you sit down, go have a shower, you tend to cool down a little bit, but there's been a few times where I walked straight off the court and plopped myself right down kind of in front of the door waiting for the guy to walk through to talk about it. And sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.

Q. Nothing with Lleyton at Wimbledon when you had that great five‑setter?
TAYLOR DENT: I don't think so, no. I don't think so.

Q. You're a substantial guy. Who are three guys you would not want to have to get into an alley fight with?
TAYLOR DENT: Alley fight, God... I don't know. See, my impression of, like, South Americans is if you fight one, you're fighting the whole clan. So South Americans are kind of off limits, I think. You just let those guys be. You're friends with those guys, "Right on. Vamos. Let's go." I'll put them into one category. Other guys are, I don't know what I would do with Dick Norman or Ivo Karlovic. I don't know. How do I go about that, you know? Right there (elbowing gesture), I don't know what to do. So those would be my three.

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