I brought that up just about every 20 minutes of the match. 'Yeah, good call, it's going to go quick.'

[What resonated for Blake during his match with Agassi was] when Jimmy Connors sits down and says, 'This is what they came for. This is what we'll give them.' ... It doesn't get any bigger, or better, than that.

I never faced Pete (Sampras) in a match. I think from watching, his is the best serve ever. And he is the only guy that I would probably not take the bet that he would so often offer in practice -- he's down love-40, says '10 bucks, I still hold serve.' I probably wouldn't even take that against him. So many times he would come back and win. He would just put it on the dime. I also wouldn't take the bets when we were just practicing our serves, he put just a tennis ball can on the other side, and says, 'A hundred bucks for who hits more.' That's not a safe bet with him.

We know what's at stake. If we don't win this match, we can't win the Davis Cup next year.

Hopefully the maintenance crew won't have as much to do on the court after the first match here. Andy actually came up with that joke, so I blame him. This is the first time my name has been picked. I'm usually second. But playing first, it should be fun.

They don't normally call it that quick.