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AUSTRALIAN OPENJanuary 19, 2020Michael VenusGabriela DabrowskiBethanie Mattek-SandsSania MirzaNadia KichenokChan LatishaChan Hao-ChingNicolas MahutPierre-Hugues HerbertMike BryanBob BryanJohn PeersMelbourne, Victoria, Australia THE MODERATOR: Thank you for joining us for Doubles Down Under. All the players, could you tell us your thoughts, how you're feeling about contesting in the first Grand Slam of the year. CHAN HAO-CHING: Hi, everyone. It's very happy to back in Australia. For us, it's always to be nice in Melbourne because it's first Grand Slam in a year. Every time we had very happy time during the Melbourne event of the tournament. In the city we always have good time. So it's very happy to get back. CHAN LATISHA: I'm happy to be back, to compete on the tour again with my sister. Also, you know, to face the first Grand Slam, I know is a huge event. We have been doing a very consistent preparation for this slam. Hopefully we can get a good result. NADIA KICHENOK: Hi, everyone. They call it Happy Slam. It's like this for players. It's very exciting because it's first big tournament of the year, I can say. Yeah, I hope we all can make a good result. SANIA MIRZA: Hi, guys. I'm just really happy to be back playing tennis. It's been a long time. Obviously Australia is somewhere where I started playing in 2005, my first-ever slam. I'm really excited to be back here, to have like a sort of second ending to my career, I guess. I'm looking forward to it. I think I speak for all the players, this is probably the best slam there is that we play, probably one of the best for sure. I'm really excited to be back. BETHANIE MATTEK-SANDS: I am also happy Sania is back because the locker room just got a lot noisier (laughter). I have a lot of great memories here in Melbourne. I think it's some of the players' favorite slam. Craig does an amazing job. Happy to be here. GABRIELA DABROWSKI: I think everybody pretty much said it all. I mean, the tournament does such a wonderful job of making the players feel welcome. They keep making consistent improvements every single year. It's really hard to beat. Yeah, it's pretty incredible to spend time in Melbourne. It's one of my favorite cities in the whole world. Yup, I love it. PIERRE-HUGUES HERBERT: Hello, everybody. Yeah, I'm, and I think we are, really happy to be back here. We experienced nice emotions last year, so we're happy to be back in Australia. Yeah, we're happy to start off. Nothing else to say. Happy to be here. NICOLAS MAHUT: Well, happy to be here and sit in front of you guys, next to Mike (laughter). MIKE BRYAN: We're very happy to be here. This is our last time here. We're going to miss this place. We've been playing here since '96, before some of you guys were born (smiling). This has been our most successful slam. So we're going to try to soak it in, no expectations. Haven't seen the draw. Is it out? I think we're floating this year, so... Stay away from these guys, we'll be okay. BOB BRYAN: Like everyone said, we're all honored to be at this tournament. They keep pushing the bar every year, from the facilities to the food. It's just a pleasure to come down here and see what Craig has done. He's done an amazing job. Yeah, we're just going to give it one last run. I'll pass it over to Johnny. JOHN PEERS: Yeah, it's always great to play back in Australia. Not only tennis, but the Australian tennis community, it was great to have everyone here. For me, it's a new fun partnership this year with Mike. Start off in Australia, see how we go. MICHAEL VENUS: Happy to be here, thanks (laughter). THE MODERATOR: Also just wanted to ask a quick couple of questions. Sania, like you just said, you've had the two-year absence. It must be great to be back in Australia to contest the first Grand Slam of the year. SANIA MIRZA: Yeah, I think, like I said, I have a lot of memories from Melbourne. I have a lot of memories from here. It's a special place in my heart because this is my first-ever slam that I ever played. Like I said, it's also the first-ever slam that I would be playing after I've had that two-year absence, which I didn't know how I was going to make it back after having a baby. Like I said, it's as close to a home slam for us as it gets, especially for Asians. We're obviously excited to be here. THE MODERATOR: Bob and Mike, you mentioned the last Australian Open for you both. A number of amazing titles, some great memories. Does it feel any different coming into the last year? MIKE BRYAN: Yeah, I mean, this is a really special place for us. Really successful for us. I think we made nine out of ten finals consecutively. We're stoked to be back here. We're going to obviously just try to soak it all in because we don't know if we're going to get invited for the seniors, commentating probably not. Bethanie has the Tennis Channel job. Maybe coaching these guys. We got down here early. We have a lot of days of practice, eight days so far. Our last match was at the US Open. Trying to shake off the rust and put in a good performance. We're just hoping to thank a lot of people, walk around, give our gratitude for this wonderful tournament. THE MODERATOR: We're going to open it up to questions. Q. Bob and Mike, when did you first kind of feel it was time to call it a day? In doubles terms, there's older players on the tour. Do you want to keep it going? BOB BRYAN: Look, yeah, doubles you're only covering half the court. You can go pretty long. I mean, look at Nestor was 46. He was kind of pushing the bar way out there, which was scary. I would say 10, 15 years ago, 35 was ancient. With the training, everything, the ages are getting up there quick. We wanted to play until we were I guess irrelevant. I don't think Mike or I want to play on fumes, just to be out there. We still feel like we can contend for the big titles. It was a very tough decision. Tennis is our life. We both love traveling the world and doing this together. But we want to go out with a little kick, not be limping around. Q. Bob and Mike, how do you soak it in? Look around a little more? MIKE BRYAN: Take the blinders off. We're always really focused, take practice seriously, all that. But walk out there with just different expectations. We're always so focused on winning. If we don't win, we're pissed. Now, yeah, we're spending more time at the site, having more conversations, taking more time. It's not just practice and go back and lay in bed, feel good for the match. It's, like, get out here and talk to all of you, sit and talk to Bethanie. Yeah, I mean, it's basically looking around. It's getting out of your own head, being solely focused on the victories. Now we're coming in here and we don't know how we're going to do. We haven't looked at the draw yet. If we can win a match or two, we'll be stoked. Yeah, a couple chest bumps, call it a day. Q. Sania, how much more complicated is it for you now as a mum traveling so far away from home? Do you have a much bigger entourage? BETHANIE MATTEK-SANDS: She's always had a big entourage. SANIA MIRZA: I've always had. My baby's entourage is bigger than mine now. That's the only way I'm able to give my 100% into training. It is a little more complicated. He sleeps in the same bed as me still, so he wakes up a couple of times a night. It's basic things like that that you probably don't think about when you're not a mum. It's things like that. I'm really lucky. I have a lot of help. My mum is there. My parents have been a great support. There's no way I would have done it without them. It does get a little more complicated. Having that kind of support system, I'm okay to leave him and come here and do this, not worry about the fact he's back in the hotel room. It's a bit of mixed bag. I think after having a baby, it puts a lot of things in a lot of perspective. We understand losing a tennis match is probably not the worst thing in the world. Q. Does that help sharpen your multi-tasking? SANIA MIRZA: I'm a woman (laughter). I think multi-tasking is something that maybe comes a little bit more naturally to women than men. I'm just going to say that. But, no, yeah, I think there is no other choice. It does help to have so many hands, so many helping people around. Honestly, if you asked me this two years ago, if I was going to do it, I probably would have said no. But I'm glad that I did. I'm glad that I'm here today. Q. Did you have a particular inspiration, one person in particular, who inspired you to come back as a mum? SANIA MIRZA: I mean, it's great to see so many mums out there. I feel especially in the part of the world that I come from, when women have a kid or kids, it's treated as kind of an end of their world, it's all about the children. I feel that women are made to feel if they go out and chase their dreams, they're probably not the best mothers in the world. I hope that changes. I hope that if my victory or even one match can inspire even one woman to follow her dream or heart, I would be really, really privileged. Q. Bob, a bit off topic. Had you been in touch with Andy Murray at all? Going through a bit of a tough time again. BOB BRYAN: Yeah, I talked to him last week. He's got something unrelated to the hip injury. His hip feels great. All his numbers are off the charts. He tests the speed and the strength. He's right back where he was when he was No. 1, which is incredible. That's good to hear. But, yeah, he's got some question marks over this recent injury. He hopes to be back as soon as he can. But he's still working on it. Q. Your hip, is it still kind of 100%? Any issues with it? BOB BRYAN: Yeah, no. You got to do a little extra work, recovery. But it's a good surgery. It's come a long way since a lot of our friends got it done 15, 20 years ago. It spelled the end of your career. I think this has given hope to a lot of people. Q. Still expecting to see Andy come back? BOB BRYAN: Oh, yeah. If anyone saw the documentary, you'll know how crazy he is with the work. He's a madman. He's going to put it in. He's going to do everything he can. I expect to see him playing for many more years, winning. Q. Michael and John, talk about the process of the courtship, when you go and seek a new partner, how you go about that. Also how will each other's games complement your own? MICHAEL VENUS: John sent a lot of messages to me, was extremely nicer than he's ever been (smiling). No, we've known each other for a number of years. We live very close to each other in London, practice together there for a couple years now. We've known each other well. Just kind of happened. The idea got put out there. We both thought it was kind of a good fit. We're giving it a shot. Q. What in John's game will complement yours? Why will you be a good team? MICHAEL VENUS: We'll probably have to win some matches first to figure that out better. No, I mean, he's got a big serve. He's aggressive. Good hands around the net. Moves well. Understands the doubles game very well. Yeah, I think he does everything pretty well, pretty good. I'll just try and hang onto him, clean up the little bits I can here and there. Q. And John? JOHN PEERS: Yeah, no, it's pretty much like a relationship. You throw a few messages out, hope for the best. Mike said yes, so that was good (smiling). No, it's going to be good fun playing with Mike. We've known each other for quite a long time now, live close to each other in London. Hopefully try to complement each other, set him up, have a bit of fun, and see what we can do. Q. Sania, if you could talk about winning in Hobart, if that has changed your expectations, raised your expectations, coming here? SANIA MIRZA: I think that's the best thing that happened, is you go into a tournament and you expect so much out of it sometimes that you put unnecessary pressure. I went into the tournament hoping to play a match or two. That's what we kind of spoke about, too, with Nadia. Winning it obviously meant so much because I don't think anyone expected it, neither did I, to come back after two and a half years and win a tournament. As far as expectations, I think one tournament is too early to sort of judge what's going to happen, how the year is going to go. There's a lot of other things, the body, it reacts a bit differently now. I'm a couple years older, too. After the baby, as well. More probably to do with age than anything. So I just have to keep all those things in mind. Expectations, I mean, I always expect the best out of myself. Yeah, if I don't win, it's not the best. I try to win every match that I play. That's just every tennis player will tell you that. Q. Nicolas and Pierre, how are you feeling now after such a high last year here in Melbourne, coming back? PIERRE-HUGUES HERBERT: We're happy to be here (smiling). No, we actually didn't really see each other for one and a half months. We had our first practice session this morning. We're really happy to be back together on court. We had an amazing end of the year. Yeah, just we're going to try our best. We know it's a Grand Slam. Every match is not easy to win. We're going to try to bring some of the things that worked last year into this year. We'll see where it goes. Q. Nicolas, what are the expectations? NICOLAS MAHUT: The expectation is to have fun on court. If we have fun on court, the results will follow. Like he said, we need to spend more time on the court. First, he has to play his singles tournament, then hopefully we win the first one or two matches, have some rhythm. Q. Bethanie, when you look into this year, especially with the Olympics, I have no idea if that's on your radar, how do you see this upcoming year, especially on the WTA doubles circuit? Is there a chance, given the success you've had with the lady on your right, that we might see Sania and Beth team up again? BETHANIE MATTEK-SANDS: We have a nickname. SANIA MIRZA: No. BETHANIE MATTEK-SANDS: Sania is in charge of that. No, actually last year when I came back, I actually had a second knee surgery after the Australian Open last year. I came back for the grass season. Then I played with a lot of different partners. I was playing with Danielle Collins, I was playing with Coco, I was playing with Kenin, Garcia. For me, I was playing with a lot of my friends, just seeing how the knee felt, how the body felt. I'm coming into this year playing a couple more events with Kenin. Our first tournament we played was Beijing. We did really well. I think that got on our minds, maybe we can be a possible Olympic team. 2020 Tokyo has been on my list since I played 2016. It was an amazing experience. It's definitely there. Obviously you don't know until you get selected, till you get the call. As of right now, I plan on playing with Kenin for a little bit. I played with Flipkens last year, too. It's on the list. I have to get the ranking up. I'm feeling good. I think that's what matters. Kenin and I played really well together. I see it happening. THE MODERATOR: Thank you very much, everyone. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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