Mary Pierce defeats Mashona Washington

 6-3, 6-2

First Round

Q.  Mary, that looked fairly comfortable again today. 

MARY PIERCE:   Yeah.  Yeah.  It was a weird match, I think.  I started off really strong, so I think she felt the pressure, and you know, she made a lot of errors.  I think she made a lot of errors today, and she actually started to really play well in the end of the match there and played more aggressive and keeping the ball on the court. 

And really no, I was real happy with my play.  I knew what to do.  I felt like I executed well.  There was a point in the match in the second set on my serve I just went totally off and started missing a lot of serves and double faulting, so other than that, I'm really happy with today's match. 

Q.  How are you doing physically?  Feeling pretty good coming into this week?

MARY PIERCE:   Yeah.  Yeah.  Feeling great.  You know, I had a good week last week, you know.  I'm just excited to be here.  It's one of my favorite tournaments.  I love the clay season.  I just think it's so short, so I feel good, yeah.

Q.  Tell us about someone like Mashona who's 28 years old and she's 51 in the world and she's trying to get to, you know, the elite level that you guys are at.  What's it like being that type of a player trying to get to a certain point? 

MARY PIERCE:   I don't know.  Probably have to ask her that question.  She could give you a better answer than I could.  I don't know what it's like.  I don't know.  Sorry. 

Q.  What is it about the venue that you like here?  What is it about the setup, the venue that you like here?

MARY PIERCE:   The people, first of all.  They're really friendly.  My father's family is from North Carolina, so I have kind of that southern hospitality bred, I guess you could say, in me, and I like that a lot.  So that's really nice.  And the food is great here.  The whole tournament and staff, you know, we get little gifts every day, and it's just so nice.  Everybody's really nice. 

Q.  What do you know about your next opponent?

MARY PIERCE:   Not a lot.  I know she's little.  My brother watched her match, so he'll tell me what I need to do against her, but I know, you know, the first and foremost I just need to go out and play my game over anything else. 

I know what she looks like, so I got that going for me already.  But you know, she's probably pretty tough because, you know, clay is probably her best surface, and I'm sure she's pretty quick and brings a lot of balls back, and those kind of players are dangerous.  You know, I mean I really have to be on my game and be focused and be aggressive and not make errors because, you know, I mean she could really get in the match and could be dangerous, so I just really gotta be focused for that one.

Q.  Since Australia I think you've only lost to top four ranked players.  Do you feel like your momentum is sort of building in these weeks up to the French?

MARY PIERCE:   Yeah.  Definitely.  I mean French is my favorite tournament.  It's definitely my goal of the clay court season, if not of the year.  And you know, I took two weeks off, didn't play in Miami to prepare for the clay season, and worked really hard. 

So you know, I know there's no secrets in my career.  I've had some great moments and I know that hard work always pays off, so you just don't know exactly when.  But yeah.  I'm feeling great and I'm excited, and I think in Indian Wells everything started to really pick up there. 

You know, I had my shoulder injury at the end of the year and I couldn't play for two months, so I knew it was going to take me like two or three months to get to where I want to be totally.  Physically I felt fine, but tennis wise I needed to get the time on the court, and I've done that and I've been playing matches, so I'm feeling good.

Q.  Considering how short the clay season is when you prepare for the French Open, is it a situation where you have to just go full speed right from the beginning of the season or do you work on a few things in each tournament leading up to the French Open?

MARY PIERCE:   Well, I work on things in the two weeks that I practice before I start my tournaments, and then when you play your tournaments, it's kind of you see where you're at, what you're doing well, what you need to work on, and every day is different in tennis.  One day you could be serving well.  One day you could be not serving well.  So we're never perfect, but always try to be better and better, and you know, I think in the beginning you don't start off so great, even though I won today's match without a battle, but I feel like I could definitely play much better.  So that's usually how it is.  You just start in the beginning and your game kind of picks up more and more.

Q.  Mary, I go over to Seacoast Church sometimes.  Somebody told me you spoke there the other night.  Is that right? 

MARY PIERCE:   I didn't speak there.  I just attended their service Sunday night.

Q.  Okay.  Do you usually try to find a play to go to church when you're on the road at these tournaments?

MARY PIERCE:   I do.  It's sometimes difficult, but I do try to find a place when I travel. 

Q.  Do you like those kind of, I don't know how you describe it, those with the modern music?

MARY PIERCE:   Yes.

Q.  You like those kind of churches?

MARY PIERCE:   Yeah.  That was really fun.  I enjoyed it a lot.  It's kind of like my church at home.

Q.  All right.  Thank you?

MARY PIERCE:   You're welcome.