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U.S. OPEN

September 9, 2016

New York, NY, USA

SIEGEMUND-PAVIC/Vandeweghe-Ram

6-4, 6-4

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. Congratulations. I have heard it described as a blind date. I don't know if you know what that term means, but start out first, can you each tell me what it means to be a Grand Slam champion?
LAURA SIEGEMUND: Well, at this point, yeah, me personally I can't really believe it yet. It hasn't really hit me.

I mean, I'm just stunned a little bit at this point. I'm very happy. I think we played a great match today. We did play a great tournament. All the other matches were, yeah, very solid also in the important situations, although we never played together.

So it's just amazing that even in the finals we could just play the same, you know, stay focused and stick to the system that was working the whole week.

He was, as the British say, cool as a cucumber. He was cooler than me maybe at times. (Smiling.) I was very glad about that.

Q. And your thoughts on being a Grand Slam champion?
MATE PAVIC: Well, it still has to settle down a little bit. I'm still kind of not feeling it at the moment. But, no, I mean, like she said, it was a great week for us. Maybe the story how we ended up playing together, you know, maybe that helped a little bit, because we had no expectations at all, you know.

We just kind of not sure we were gonna play or not. Maybe that helped a little bit.

Yeah, we played all the matches very solid, very good. It was a fun week. It was great.

Q. Can you talk about how you guys came together? I have heard the story, but I'd like to hear it from you guys. Like I say, it's almost like the perfect blind date.
LAURA SIEGEMUND: Yeah, it's really kind of a blind date. Honestly, I didn't know him before. We don't have too many combined events and I'm just starting to play the big ones, combined events. I have never seen him or heard his name.

I was not sure if I was gonna play because I wasn't feeling very well at that point. But I still -- I mean, I love the game of mixed, so I really wanted to play.

It was still a week till the first match of mixed, so I was hoping that someone would, you know, trust me that I would maybe get better. He was the only one that was very relaxed about the situation and also didn't have a partner yet. So he didn't have a lot of options. The cut is kind of high. Weren't really a lot of girls around that were looking, so... (Smiling.)

MATE PAVIC: I was stuck with her.

LAURA SIEGEMUND: It turned out quite well in the end. So, yeah, that was the situation. And then even when I played my other matches -- I had to retire from doubles. It was a day I couldn't move.

And then singles was hard on me. And even after the singles he thought, I think, that I was maybe just gonna retire and just go home to get better.

MATE PAVIC: Yeah.

LAURA SIEGEMUND: I remember the text like the next -- or after my singles. He's like, So, are we gonna play tomorrow? I was like, Yeah, let's do it. (Smiling.)

Q. Laura, until a year or two ago you were still juggling tennis and school. Now you are able to focus completely on tennis. How much has that helped your game?
LAURA SIEGEMUND: Honestly, I really think it always helped my game a lot if I had not only tennis on my mind. I kind of need some balance is what I found out for myself. So this season was a little bit tough for me because it was the first time after a couple of years where I had only tennis. Only thing I focused on.

So a great year, of course. Looking at the rankings, also and this title now.

But it is difficult for me. I feel like I need some time off, and if it's not studying or coaching what I did before, I kind of, you know, make hobbies or whatever. I just take time for other things, which is really important for me.

But, yeah, the first season back full-time pro, it's a good season.

Q. How do you celebrate winning a Grand Slam? What are both of your plans for tonight?
MATE PAVIC: I don't know. I have a flight tomorrow evening, so I have the whole night to think about it. Probably go somewhere and celebrate. I don't know. Don't know yet.

LAURA SIEGEMUND: I trust his crew to have a good location. They said they have a good location; we just need to win. So we did it.

Q. Celebrating with strangers, right?
LAURA SIEGEMUND: Well, no. I mean, we kind of got to know the Croatian crew a little bit through the week.

Q. What do you think? Is this the beginning of something beautiful together?
LAURA SIEGEMUND: On my side, yes. I don't know how you feel about it.

MATE PAVIC: Of course, yeah.

LAURA SIEGEMUND: Well, I think we should definitely play more together, and is also the matter of the cut.

MATE PAVIC: Hopefully we will get in Australia and maybe try there also to play.

Q. Just talk about the match today, also.
MATE PAVIC: I think it was a good match. It was very good. They are good. They are solid. They both serving good. Coco is also serving good for the girl. All the other matches the girls were not really serving that good or hitting the ball that good.

I think we were -- like I said before, she's returning very good for the girl, you know. So all the matches that we played, we broke the guy's serve a lot of times. Like even today Rajeev was serving and we broke his serve twice.

Was putting the balls back, returning good, makes the guy feel pressure and he has to win those games and then it's not easy to make the point. So I think that make a huge difference in all the matches that we played so far.

Q. Do you guys think the cut system needs to be changed? To me it sounds ridiculous that the US Open champions might not be able to play the Australian Open.
MATE PAVIC: Yeah. Yeah, maybe right. I don't know if they should change it or not, but usually the cuts are very strong because they always look at the better rankings.

Also depends on a lot of singles guys and girls also, if they sign or not if they want to play.

LAURA SIEGEMUND: Me, personally, yeah, I think it's hard. I had the situation for quite sometime that I really wanted to play mixed, but I was just out of the cut.

The group of people that have the ranking for that, they are kind of set with each other for a long time already. So if you're coming from outside it's very hard to get into that group unless you're like pushing your own ranking up so much.

So, yeah, I really think it's a little bit sad, yeah, that even we would have to see now if we get in in the Australian Open, for example. Yeah.

Q. Winning a Grand Slam, what does this do for your confidence moving over to men's doubles tournaments going forward for the rest of the season?
MATE PAVIC: Well, I don't know. We will see. It feels great. Of course it's gonna give you confidence winning a Grand Slam. Even if it's a mixed doubles, it's still amazing feeling, you know.

So I had a good year so far. I won like four ATPs. So we'll see. I hope to just continue like that. Get my ranking a little bit better. My goal is to get top 30 by end of the year to get to the majors of Masters 1000s and all these events. We will see how does it do.

Q. Laura, the same question. Just in terms of obviously being a Grand Slam champion now, what does this do for your confidence and also your goals going forward?
LAURA SIEGEMUND: Um, well, yeah, as he said, it's always a push in the confidence winning a big thing like that. I think you learn -- as a girl, I learn a lot about doubles playing the mixed. I mean, it's just -- everything is faster, even faster than if you play girls doubles, for example.

So you really learn to pick the spots and not be afraid at the net maybe. I mean, I learned a lot this week also where to move and all that, so I think I can use that in the women's doubles.

Although it's still a different game. I mean, it is different. But I definitely try to take that, you know, swing into the last tournaments of the year, yeah.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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U.S. OPEN

September 9, 2016

Laura Siegemund

Mate Pavic