AUSTRALIAN OPEN

January 27, 2026

Jason Kubler

Marc Polmans

Press Conference

KUBLER-POLMANS/Doumbia-Reboul

6-4, 7-6

THE MODERATOR: First of all, congratulations on making it into the next round. Could you please tell us your thoughts on the match today?

MARC POLMANS: Thank you. Yeah, I think the match was very 50/50. I think Jason and I did a good job of holding on to our serve throughout the match and giving ourselves a chance to break at 5-4 in the first.

Credit to the French boys for fighting back and breaking our serve at 5-All in the second. It looked like the match was going to a three-setter, so really happy we were able to get the break back and play a solid tiebreak.

I think the match was good quality from both teams, and I think the crowd was also really special tonight, too.

THE MODERATOR: Questions.

Q. You mentioned after the match, Marc, that this is your first time playing doubles together. I'm just keen to hear how that sort of partnership all came about?

MARC POLMANS: Yeah, Mate. It's pretty funny how -- yeah, it's pretty crazy to me how this has happened. Jason and I, this is our first tournament ever together. We've never played anything else.

Maybe it's a good thing. Maybe no teams have any vision to watch us, because considering it's the first time us teaming up. I asked Jason, was it back in October, end of October --

JASON KUBLER: Yeah.

MARC POLMANS: -- if he would like to team up in January. He said yes. So that's how it came about.

But I think we both gel pretty well, so pretty glad how things have turned out so far.

Q. You mentioned the fact that not many players have probably seen you guys play together, so as you mentioned, you think that does give you a bit of an edge given that your opponents probably find it maybe hard to prepare to play against you guys?

MARC POLMANS: I think so. I think there's not many secrets out there between the players on the tour. Everyone knows each other's strengths and weaknesses. So it gives Jason and I a little bit of an element of maybe they're not quite sure what to expect, because like you said, there's not much matches of us anywhere just apart from this tournament.

So the guys have to kind of come up with a game plan on the spot, and I think that works into our hands a little bit.

Q. You guys played two sort of singles pairs and two doubles pairs. How do you shift your mindset when you are playing against singles guys versus doubles guys?

JASON KUBLER: I think there's little differences. You know, obviously with the singles guys, they're more probably going to stay back a little bit more and maybe hit a little bit bigger from the baseline.

Then with the doubles guys, you know, they have a lot more -- not a lot more, but more knowledge at the net, where to sort of cover. If you hit certain spots, almost they'll say too good and cover the more percentage play.

I would say more our game is pretty similar either way. You know, Marc is obviously a great singles player and doubles player, so he's great from the baseline and from the net, and I'm sort of just swinging from the back anyway.

There's definitely the little differences, but you know, for the most part, we're just going out there and trying to play our way. Then, luckily so far, it's been working.

Q. There was a pretty big crowd in there tonight. How much did that sort of energize you guys?

MARC POLMANS: Yeah, I think it was quite loud considering the roof was closed. You could hear everyone's chants, and it was also cool when the French supporters came. It was a bit of back and forth between the Aussies and the French. That's why we love playing at home. The support is awesome, and it was great to see support for the French team.

So this brought the best tennis out of all four on the court, but very special to have my mom and dad and my partner and then my brother here. So, yeah, it was a nice night.