An Interview With Jan-Michael Gambill
An Interview With Jan-Michael Gambill
MIKI SINGH: Jan-Michael is a three-set winner, third set breaker over the 12th seed Mark Philippoussis. He's now won seven of his last ten matches, only losing to Andre Agassi twice, and reigning French Open champion Gustavo Kuerten. Been playing some pretty good tennis of late, reaching the quarterfinals of Scottsdale last week and quarters of San Jose about a month ago.
First question for Jan-Michael.
Q Why such a great start to this year? Anything in particular?
JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I've revamped the way I've been thinking about my game. Mentally, I'm a lot tougher, I think. You can see it in this match today. I mean, I had a lot of chances. I would have been pretty angry to lose that match. I was up 3-Love in the second set. He broke me back, broke me again. Hopefully, I usually expect to be able to hold serve, not get broken twice in a set, especially if you're up.
Didn't let it bother me. Down a break in the second set. Stay mentally tough and you get an opportunity. I think I've integrated that in my game a lot better, I'm serving a lot better.
Q How would it have gone differently last year?
JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: Last year something like that would have defeated me in my own mind. I would have thought, you know, I'm playing Mark Philippoussis, I'm not going to be able to break him back, 2-Love in the third set. Maybe I'll just try to hold serve and make it look good.
Now I'm thinking, make him play, make him hit a shot, you're going to get lucky, maybe break him. Just keep pushing hard.
Q Is that a case of taking some time to feel that you belong out on the Tour?
JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I think so. I think so. Last year pretty much my first year in the big tournaments, I was a little intimidated. Not really intimidated too much, but nervous out there playing bigger players, like I didn't really fit in.
Now I -- like I fit in a little better. I'm playing much better tennis.
Q You've had some very good results already. How does this one, knocking off him in this situation, fit?
JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I might have to say this is my best result. I beat Kiefer last week, that was my top ranking-wise win. In Memphis I had a 9-7 in a third set breaker against Byron Black. I thought that was a great match to pull out, too. If you can pull the match out in a third-set breaker, it's close, you feel pretty good.
Q How does a guy from the state of Washington have to have such a European-sounding name?
JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: My mom has always liked the name Jan-Michael. I don't know why it sounds European, exactly. I hope it sounds American.
Q Because it has a hyphen in it.
JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: That's true. I'm kind of named after the actor Jan-Michael Vincent. I think he's American.
Q Where is Colbert, Washington?
JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: Colbert, Washington, is about two minutes outside of Spokane. It's not really anything. It's like a suburb of Spokane. Do you know where Spokane is? It's a growing city.
Q Hardly a hot bed of tennis.
JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: That's true.
Q How did you happen to get involved and develop up there?
JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I got involved with tennis with my dad when I was very young. I would go and watch him play, kind of as a baby-sitting situation. He would just keep me at the sidelines and play himself. I would beg him to play every day. Finally he would let me play. We got interested together.
He's brought me up playing. He's taught me all my life.
Q Is he a competitive player?
JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: Yeah.
Q Is he still your coach?
JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: He's still my coach, yes. He wasn't a competitive player, per se, on the Tour, just recreationally.
Q There's a junior program up there where you developed enough or did you have to do a lot of traveling?
JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: Had to do a lot of traveling. I've always worked with my dad, a lot of drilling. We've always believed in ball drills. You can do ball drills however many hours a day you want to do them. You don't need to go to an academy to do that. I've gone to some academies like Bollettieri, recently, because there's a lot of good players in those places.
Q Did you ever work with Frank at all?
JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I never worked with him. I'm friends with him. He's far away, in Medford.
Q You could meet him in Yakima.
JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I worked with a guy named Scott Shogren (phonetic) for two years. He's up there. He's helped me a lot.
Q Is there a number in the rankings that you're kind of like shooting at, you want to get here first before you get here?
JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I have personal goals. My personal goal for this year -- for the first of the year was to make it in the Top 100. I'm getting pretty close. After that, Top 50. After that, Top 10. You always want to make a better and better goal for yourself.
Q What do you think is the best part of your game?
JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: Usually my groundstrokes. I kind of let them down a little bit in the second set. He was overpowering me too much. But my serve has helped me out a lot. Serving pretty big.
Q What about his serve? You never played him before.
JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: His serve is big (laughter). He's hitting those lines, I'm not going to get it. Hopefully, I can maybe get my racquet on it, guess right, make him hit a ball. He doesn't miss a lot of easy shots. Once in a while, you're going to get one. When I broke him back in the second set, I just barely got the set back, he diced the dropshot wide. That was the break that made it 2-All.
Q He also missed a real sitter on set point in the first tiebreak, right?
JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: That's right, yes. That was a deep sitter, though. Sometimes though high balls can be tough. He hit -- hit pretty hard. He hit a good shot. I think it was just barely wide.
Q To save a lazy guy from looking it up, how old are you?
JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I'm 20.
Q Could you go through the timing of how you got the wildcard, when you found out?
JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I found out about the wildcard, let's see, today is Tuesday, it was Saturday night, Saturday night.
Q Threw some stuff in a bag and headed down?
JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I was still in Scottsdale, still in the quarterfinals in Scottsdale. I was playing Agassi. We got rained out that night. I found out that night. I was really excited. We went out the next day. I lost to Agassi in a close one, and then we drove down here.
Q Have you looked at the brackets at all and noticed that he's sitting there and there's a chance you could see him again?
JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: Yeah, he's in the quarters again. I don't like to look that far ahead ever. But a chance to play him in the quarters again, I'd love to do that.
MIKI SINGH: Third time in a month, if it happens.
Q Do you think you could win this tournament?
JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I would never think about something like that. I'd hopefully just think about the next match. My goal is always to play just one point at a time. Looking forward is not a good thing for me to do.
Q Did you speak to anybody about playing Mark, even though you know of him and know his reputation as a big hitter?
JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I spoke to my dad about it pretty much, you know. We watch everybody and we know most people's games. I knew what I had to do out there to win the match. I knew I had to serve real big. I knew I had to make him hit a lot of balls, hopefully make him hit a lot of balls on his own serve. I needed to step up my groundstrokes. He overpowers you. Second set at the end of it, overpowering me. Third set I stepped up my groundstrokes a little bit.
Q What is your dad's name?
JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: Chuck.
Q You're from Washington, but you look like the prototype Californian. You're blonde. Did you ever spend much time on the beach?
JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I do. I love to spend time on the beach. In fact, if there's a beach around here, I'm going to go to the pool later today. There's no beach around here. My dad loves California. We love Florida, Hawaii. Pretty much love the beach.
Q Did you ever think about playing college tennis?
JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I thought about it. College tennis just wasn't something that -- all my life I had trained to be a pro tennis player, in my mind. I thought, give it a shot first for sure before I go to college.
If you -- last year I had a lot of losses, but that's kind of you've got to take your lumps to get into the ranks where you feel you're playing better tennis. I don't think college tennis would have helped me as much that way.
Q What else do you like to do besides going to the beach?
JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: During tournaments?
Q Like hobbies.
JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: Hobbies? I like cars. I like Jaguars a lot. Those are my favorite cars.
Q Do you own one?
JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: Old and new, you pick it.
Q Do you own already one?
JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I own two.
Q Two?
JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: Yes. At home I like to just go out and hang out with my friends. You're playing three out of four weeks in a month usually. You get home and you just want to relax. Home is kind of my vacation right now.
Q Have you seen Titanic?
JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I have.
Q Some of us were kidding you look like the guy in Titanic, without the water.
JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I guess that would be a compliment. That's a great movie. I love that. I like to go to movies.
Q Have you seen any of Jan-Michael Vincent's movies?
JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I have. I think he had a TV show Blue Thunder, helicopter show. I loved that show when I was little. Anything like Night Rider or Blue Thunder when I was little. It might have been Air Wolf.
Q When you played Agassi, was the environment around those matches unlike anything you'd ever experienced before, the crowd, the noise?
JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: The crowd really didn't get into it against Agassi. They got into it here today.
Q So this was a bigger response?
JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: There were less people here today than against Agassi. I really like it when the crowd gets into it. I love a basketball-type atmosphere. I love like watching basketball, Utah Jazz are my favorite team. I like to go out and have everybody getting into it. Not during the points, because it's pretty hard to concentrate. After the points, just screaming and yelling. We got the Euroclap going today. Adidas people were there.
Q Kind of like Davis Cup?
JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: Yeah. I actually have a hitting partner -- I'll be a hitting partner for the Davis Cup this year in a couple weeks. I'll see that firsthand.
Q You noted all your life you've been training to be a pro tennis player in your own mind. All your life from what age? Five?
JAN-MICHAEL GAMBILL: I started playing tennis when I was about six. I wasn't thinking then that I was going to be a pro tennis player. Gradually, over time, I started to hope that I was going to be.
But I try to live a pretty normal life. I finished high school. I try to be home a lot to be with my friends. That's one reason I didn't go to an academy. I like to stay home with my family.
MIKI SINGH: Any other questions? Thanks.
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