TENNIS MASTERS CUP

November 15, 2003

Mike Bryan

THE MODERATOR: Let's start it off with Bob. Questions, please.

BOB BRYAN: Well, this one's just so sweet because it's the end of the year. You know, we finished No. 1. And this just kind of puts a cap, you know, proves to everyone that we were the No. 1 team this year. You know, the best eight teams in the world were here. I think the players on the tour have the most respect for a team that can go in here and win with the best eight teams. So, you know, it's really gonna make us enjoy our seven weeks off, you know. If you lose that last match, you're a little bitter and, you know, it's weighing on your mind a little bit. Now we can really just go party it up, have fun, enjoy our new house. It's a perfect ending to a great year.

BOB BRYAN: Yeah, I mean, at the end. I didn't think we served especially -- like super well. But it was clutch. I was pretty clutch right at the end. Mikey just said, "Just go for it," you know? We kept saying, "This is your destiny. Just go for it. You'll make it." So, you know, that was huge there at the end. But I thought it was a pretty high-quality tennis match. Those French guys are just really tough. Super -- there was a lot of long rallies. I don't know how long the match was, but it felt like we were out there forever grinding away.

BOB BRYAN: Yeah, those guys are a tough team. We nipped them at the beginning of the week and we just nipped them today. The crowd definitely turned the tide there for us. If we're playing them in France, we lose that in four sets. Fans took our shoes and socks, hats.

MIKE BRYAN: Stripped me.

BOB BRYAN: Took your racquet, too?

MIKE BRYAN: Four racquets. You answer all the questions (smiling)?

MIKE BRYAN: I mean, it's really hard to dominate in doubles. I mean, when we walk out there, every team's tough. It's almost a coin flip. You get broken once in a match and that could be it. I think we're just more consistent 'cause we worked on our weaknesses. Bob's worked on his return, I worked on my serve. You know, we put in a lot of hard work. This is our fifth year on the tour. We've gotten progressively better every year. Went from 60 to Top 20 to Top 10. Now we're No. 1. So we're just looking to keep it going. We're looking to -- as you see this week, I mean, every match was teetering on, you know we're out of the tournament.

BOB BRYAN: I wouldn't say that we dominated this year at all. You know, the race was close right till the end. And, you know, we could have left this week 4 in the world. But, you know, we stepped up. We battled. Saved those four matchpoints the first night. Then the third night we saved two. Tonight we're down two-sets-to-one. That's how close it was. But, you know, we left here the champions just 'cause we fought, you know. We were tough mentally. You know, we always stayed positive. You know, we just kept jumping around (smiling).

MIKE BRYAN: Starts over in January. We got to enjoy this until the end of December. Then it starts all over again. We start at 0.

BOB BRYAN: Uhm... You know, this is pretty sweet for us, you know, right now. We like the position we're in. We've always been twins and brothers. We always dreamed about playing doubles. I mean, for other guys, their goals are in singles. They love playing singles. They wouldn't even think about playing doubles. Mike and I, you know, get so much out of it. You know, we share our wins together. We're gonna go back to the room and just celebrate together. That's really special, you know, with your twin brother. So we have so many goals that we want to accomplish in doubles. We knocked most of them down this year. But now we like the feeling so we want to keep going. And, you know, we love to play singles, too, but we like doubles more I think - right now.

MIKE BRYAN: Yeah, definitely. Coming in here, I mean, we're just hoping to get our first win. We were on a little cold streak coming in. I mean, that first match was probably the key. We're down 5-2 in the third. It was looking bad. We hadn't won -- we won our Davis Cup match, but we hadn't won a match since the Open. That really helped our confidence. I never thought about going undefeated. You look at these teams and you're just like, "No way. No way I'm going undefeated." You have to beat a Grand Slam champion almost every match. So we just took one at a time. And now, I mean, looking back, it's pretty sweet.

MIKE BRYAN: This was probably the gutsiest match.

BOB BRYAN: This week was the gutsiest week we've ever been a part of. We won the French Open but we beat every team in straight sets. We didn't really have to lay it on -- we didn't really have to be down matchpoints and really put it on the line; seemed like we were cruising always. We were up a break. This week, it seemed like we were always down and we had to dig deep, so...

MIKE BRYAN: We had a lot of big matches this year. We won most of them. I mean, this was one of the bigger matches of the year. Definitely just because it's in the US. I consider this almost a Grand Slam. Everyone's here. It's probably a fifth Grand Slam.

MIKE BRYAN: I think it's huge. He sparked us. We were in a little bit of a lull and he came and had a lot of enthusiasm. We really like him. He's a great guy. If you like a guy and you're working together almost every day, you're gonna have good results. I mean, he's a hard worker. He scouts every opponent. Comes with a game plan at night. We have a lot of meetings. I think he's really good. Got us to No. 1 in the world. He's gonna be on the boat till we start dropping (laughter).

BOB BRYAN: No, he's got -- after this year, he's got at least 15 tournament first-round losses in a row. Then we'll cut him (laughter).

BOB BRYAN: Toughest?

MIKE BRYAN: Everyone matches up different. Everyone matches up, like -- I think we match up really good against Knowles-Nestor. We have their number right now.

MIKE BRYAN: We did at the US Open, we did in Cincinnati. Right now we feel like we're confident against them. Toughest team for us right now is Bhupathi-Mirnyi. I don't think we've beat them in the last couple times.

BOB BRYAN: But then Knowles-Nestor beat Bhupathi-Mirnyi all the time.

MIKE BRYAN: Yeah, it's weird. Just some teams match up better. That's why the race is so close.

BOB BRYAN: No one is gonna play that same team every week.

MIKE BRYAN: The draws are shuffled. You're gonna run into your worst team to play or your best team to play, so...

MIKE BRYAN: It's five years. Five.

BOB BRYAN: Yeah.

MIKE BRYAN: Five years. I mean... It was hard getting that respect in the beginning. Guys wouldn't give it to us until we won that first title. They still, I mean, the top guys wouldn't give it to us until we won that first Masters Series or Grand Slam. Woodbridge, I don't think, would give us the time of day until we won that first Grand Slam. Now he's actually, you know, chatting it up with us, joking around with us. Now, I mean, now we're world champions, No. 1 in the world. We deserve the respect.

BOB BRYAN: Yeah, but I remember the first year we came on the tour. Knowles-Nestor wanted to kill us. They're like, "Who are these little guys bouncing around, doing chest bumps. I hate these guys."

MIKE BRYAN: Yeah, yeah.

BOB BRYAN: Then we started beating them. Got up there. It felt like now we beat them, we threw a chest bump at them, they suck it up, nod their head, and shake our hands instead of trying to beat us up in the locker room like they used to (laughter).

MIKE BRYAN: We've had a couple run-ins with a couple guys that just hated us in the beginning. They just thought we were just amped all the time and they didn't give us any respect to our games. Alex O'Brien was one of them. But, you know, finally he gave it to us.

BOB BRYAN: Now we're great friends with Knowles-Nestor, and all these guys. I mean, it's great having Bhupathi and Woodbridge and Bjorkman as your best friends on the tour. I mean, you grow up, you watch these guys on TV.

BOB BRYAN: Yeah.

MIKE BRYAN: It's tough. There's not a lot of new guys coming along. The system's tougher now. There's not a lot of mobility in the system. Just 'cause they're letting the singles guys come up. So we're the youngest guys. There's a lot of veterans out there.

BOB BRYAN: I don't see a college player jumping in and cracking the Top 40 just the way the ATP set up the system. Only 35 guys get in the Masters Series. That's that, and the Grand Slams are where all the points are. So, I mean, you're gonna have to get that singles ranking up, I think as a way to get the doubles going.

MIKE BRYAN: Yep.