DAVIS CUP FINALS

November 25, 2022

Vedran Martic

Nikola Mektic

Mate Pavic

Marin Cilic

Team Croatia

Press Conference

PURCELL-THOMPSON/Mektic-Pavic

6-7, 7-5, 6-4

Team Australia - 2

Team Croatia - 1

THE MODERATOR: Your thoughts, Vedran, on this very tough tie for Croatia today.

CAPTAIN MARTIC: Yes, it was very tough tie. In the end, Australia won two points. We must congrats to Australia. They were better today. Yeah, that's it.

THE MODERATOR: Nikola or Mate, were you a little bit thrown off with the change in the nominations for Australia?

NIKOLA MEKTIC: No, I was expecting that team to play. It was a very close match. They ended up being more lucky, and as our captain said, we have to congratulate them.

THE MODERATOR: Questions.

Q. Marin, it was a tough match for you today. Can you reflect back maybe on your match?

MARIN CILIC: Yeah, definitely tough. It's always difficult to play Alex, because you have to be fresh mentally, also physically. I still had some fatigue from two days ago and was not easy to, you know, structure everything that I wanted to do on the court.

It proved to be, you know, too difficult today. So, you know, Alex played a really, really good match. Very solid. It was difficult on my own side.

Q. Mate, the match today was very service dominated, very few chances, just a few breakpoints. Can you reflect on the match today?

MATE PAVIC: Yeah, I mean, it was a close match. Yeah, it was not too many chances on the return games. We were kind of close, few games in the third set also, but we couldn't manage to get to that breakpoint.

Here and there some points, we were in the play, but just didn't go our side, you know. So, yeah, I mean, in the end they played two good return games and they made that crucial break in the third set. They played a good match.

Q. Marin, I know it's so soon after a loss, but it's been an incredible few years for the Croatian team. Can you reflect on that?

MARIN CILIC: Yeah, I mean, we have fantastic team. It's always great fun to be a part of our Davis Cup. It's always a great atmosphere, always a great joy, great energy.

You know, again this year to push it this far is fantastic. You know, everybody gave their own part. Borna played fantastic these couple ties here, also in Bologna. The guys were also there playing incredibly well.

For us, this has been a great, great year again. After finals last year, again semis, so it's great runs and we are really proud of that.