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NITTO ATP FINALS

November 15, 2018

London, England, United Kingdom

MURRAY-SOARES/Kontinen-Peers

3-6, 7-6, 10-3

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. How important is that momentum to win, to carry that on obviously to Saturday, hopefully Sunday?
JAMIE MURRAY: Well, it was a great effort for to us win the match because we obviously were hanging in a lot of the time. We never find it easy to play those guys because they serve so well, they got a lot of firepower. They make it stressful for you. But we hung in.

Again, we played our best at the end, which is really what matters in doubles.

Q. We were at the launch of the ATP Cup this morning. Jamie, we saw you on the video talking about it. Novak said yesterday he thinks having three team events so close together is unsustainable. What is your view of it? What would you like to happen?
BRUNO SOARES: Is the third team event the Laver Cup?

Q. The Laver Cup.
JAMIE MURRAY: Look, I mean, my personal opinion is that both events are providing a lot of prize money, and I think that will encourage a large majority of the player field to play both events.

Me, I'm excited about the ATP Cup. I think it's going to be a great event for the ATP. It's a players' event. We've been on the council the last three years, working to try to make it happen. It's obviously come to fruition now.

It's a great way to kick off the year. It's a great week for getting the top guys committed to playing the event, because obviously everyone wants to play at the start of the year in the leadup to the Australian Open. I think it's going to be a huge success.

Tennis Australia obviously helping, as well, partnered with the event. Those guys always run brilliant events. I'm sure they'll do a great job with this one, too.

BRUNO SOARES: Yeah, I agree. I wouldn't consider Laver Cup another one, because Laver Cup, it's a very nice event, but it's 12 players. Then Davis Cup and ATP Cup we're talking about 75 players. So I agree with Jamie. I think we got to see what happens.

But I think for the ATP and the players, it's amazing to have this event in the beginning of the year. It's a new concept. It's great. I mean, it's everything to work.

Q. Jamie, how do you feel next year, the off-season, for you? Davis Cup could finish on I think November the 24th, and then you've got to get ready for an event that starts January 3rd, which isn't unusual for an ATP player, but not much time between the two World Cups.
JAMIE MURRAY: Well, yeah, that's the issue that they will have. I don't think that's an issue for the ATP. I think that's more for the ITF event. So have to see what they try to do with that.

But again, I think the ATP is in pole position to have a successful event purely based on the week that it's in. And also the players, they all want to support the ATP and their event.

Q. Do you feel that's enough of an off-season for you? Do you plan for holiday, training, Christmas?
JAMIE MURRAY: I mean, that's the schedule. I mean, if you're committed to Davis Cup right now and you get to the final, that's when you're playing. I mean, the date is not changed, it's just more players will be involved at the end of the year.

So, you know, for me, I'm personally -- if I get selected to play those events, I'll go play them. If I have one week less off-season, I have one week less off-season.

But from my personal point of view, there's a lot of money on the table for me as a doubles player, money I can't make at other events throughout the year. Why am I going to give up that opportunity for one week? I mean, I can miss another tournament in the year, whatever.

Q. Wouldn't it be better to have one tournament, whether the ATP run the Davis Cup, one team event in the calendar year?
JAMIE MURRAY: Yeah, I think we'd both probably agree with that.

BRUNO SOARES: There's about 157 people to have to agree to that. Not that easy.

JAMIE MURRAY: And history, it's not that easy for every body come together and work together to make it happen. You have issues with calendar, things like that. It's so rigid. We're a member organization, aren't we?

BRUNO SOARES: We tried. Everyone knows that we tried. Just didn't work.

Q. Isn't the issue burnout, the fact that you're playing too much tennis, traveling too much, another tournament? Do you want the calendar to be streamlined perhaps and refined so you can have better quality tournaments, not quantity?
BRUNO SOARES: I don't.

JAMIE MURRAY: Yeah, I think the thing is obviously there's a lot of tournaments on the calendar. But if we want lots of people be able to make a career from tennis, make money from tennis, there needs to be a lot of tournaments. If you suddenly have 30 tournaments a year, you probably only have 50 players making money from the game, which is wrong, because tennis is a global sport, very successful sport.

But that obviously makes it difficult to kind of make changes within the game because there is a lot of tournaments. But, you know, we're not superstars of tennis. We're with the masses. We believe that more people should -- well, I guess I'm talking for myself.

BRUNO SOARES: Talk to yourself (smiling).

JAMIE MURRAY: I think we both believe that it's healthier that more people are able to make money from the game, right?

BRUNO SOARES: Yeah.

Q. I think it would be fair to say, Jamie, winning Davis Cup would be one of your career highlights? Would that be true?
JAMIE MURRAY: Of course, yeah.

Q. That's more than just money making?
JAMIE MURRAY: Of course.

Q. Isn't there that danger of diluting that by having multiple team events and having them so close together?
JAMIE MURRAY: Well, I guess we'll just have to wait and see. I still believe that a lot of people, if I had to put percentage, I reckon 90 to 95% of the players will still want to play both events because of the financial rewards.

But I guess the question you guys will ask is, Which one do you want to win more? I guess that's the question. But we'll see. I know they're still trying to change the date of the Davis Cup Finals, that's what they want to do. So we'll see how that develops.

Q. Do you think in that case that maybe the ideal solution is to have the ATP World Cup just as one event, the ATP Davis Cup?
BRUNO SOARES: Yeah, I think would be very nice for everyone. It could be a massive event. But we tried that for two years. Didn't really work out.

We have two different events. Like Jamie said, I think now we got to wait and see. Don't really know what's going to happen.

I think Davis Cup is going to keep the tradition. Everyone likes to play Davis Cup. And this huge ATP event coming, which I think it's going to be also really, really nice for everyone, players, fans. Represent your country again. We don't have that many chances for that.

You just have to wait and see. Who knows, two to three years, get together and make one huge event. We all tried to do it. Didn't really work. Too many people involved.

Q. Do you think that might be the only compromise really in the end, that it becomes one event?
JAMIE MURRAY: Well, we don't know because we don't know how it's going to play out. Personally I believe the ATP Cup is going to be a huge success, I think so. Davis Cup, that's up in the air because we don't know how it's going to play out.

I think everything is set up for the ATP Cup to be a success, yeah.

Q. Which one would you rather win?
JAMIE MURRAY: Don't care.

Q. Both?
JAMIE MURRAY: Yeah, win them both (smiling).

BRUNO SOARES: Listen, this question is based on tradition. Of course, Davis Cup has a hundred-year tradition. You cannot compare it to ATP Cup tradition right now.

But if you think about that, you never have new events. That's why they created Laver Cup. Two years ago, if you asked, everyone is going to make the same question. Right now, everyone loves it.

I think tradition, you got to build up. I think ATP has a great week, a great setup, a great event. 10 years from now it could be the huge tradition in our sport, 10, 20 years. If you don't start something like this, you're never going to have. You're going to just sit down and let these guys run the show.

I think for the players, it's an amazing event. We can be part of it. We can give our opinions, be part of the whole process. I think it's a huge step forward for us.

JAMIE MURRAY: And the ATP has always had the World Team Cup, they just haven't been able to use it for a while. The ATP has never come out and said this is a direct competition to Davis Cup. They have the license to have that event. They want to put on that event and bring it back, make it a huge success for the ATP.

Now they will have two of the six biggest events in tennis, which is great for the brand, company, whatever you want to call it. I think that's huge.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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NITTO ATP FINALS

November 15, 2018

Jamie Murray

Bruno Soares