NITTO ATP FINALS

November 21, 2020

Joe Salisbury

Press Conference

MELZER-VASSELIN/Ram-Salisbury

6-7, 6-3, 11-9

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. I'm assuming that's a pretty sore one to take, is it?

JOE SALISBURY: Yeah.

Q. Can you just try and sort of talk a little bit about how things happened from your perspective.

JOE SALISBURY: Yeah, I mean, I felt after we got a bad start, lost a serve but then I felt like we were on top for most of the match after that until -- yeah, I'm not sure what happened. We were up a break in the second and then lost a serve, and then it just kind of, yeah, things kind of went against us.

Just felt like -- yeah, I don't know why we lost serve there. Then I lost serve again, and it felt like things were going their way.

And then, yeah, it wasn't great quality tiebreak. I mean, we went up. Obviously we were up a lot, but hit two double faults, and so, yeah, obviously we should win from that point.

They played a few good points, but, yeah, we should win from there.

Q. Huge commiserations. Although obviously hugely disappointing tonight, can you reflect on such really an excellent season with Rajeev?

JOE SALISBURY: Yeah, I mean, it doesn't feel -- yeah, obviously it was a great start. Since we started again, I mean, yeah, we haven't done badly, I think. But I also don't feel like we have done that well either, because I think we lost a couple close matches in Grand Slams which I thought we could have won.

Yeah, then obviously the end of the season was tough. Then coming here, yeah, I mean, to be honest I think we did quite well to get to the semifinal here, because I don't think we played very well.

Obviously it's tough losing that, but I don't really feel like we deserved to be in the final how we have played this week. I mean, we have come through a couple of tiebreaks, but I don't think our level has been that good.

Obviously we still should have won that match, but, yeah, we can definitely play a lot better.

Q. There is a lot of confusion over the Australian Open, if it will go ahead and in its current dates. I presume you really want the event to happen next year to defend your titles? And secondly, do you know what you'll do? Will you just jump on a flight? As soon as you get confirmation, will you book your flight?

JOE SALISBURY: Yeah, obviously we'd like it to happen. I think everybody would.

Yeah, I'm guessing everybody is still going to go regardless of how it happens, whether there is any tournaments before or not.

So, yeah, we are just waiting to hear. We have heard different things. We have heard that we'll be able to go out start of January and then maybe not have any warmup tournaments or they might move it back a couple of weeks or move it, I have heard recently, moving it to the spring.

Yeah, we don't know. Obviously we will see what happens. We'll be out there.

Q. Obviously there was a lot at stake in terms of the rankings and everything. Do you think that had an impact? Did you feel particularly nervous in the tiebreak, or was that not so much of a factor?

JOE SALISBURY: Yeah, could have done. Wasn't at the front of my mind, but maybe subconsciously.

Yeah, definitely some nerves in the tiebreak like, yeah, in the other ones, as well. And yet it's tough like when kind of you're ahead and then they come back and you can kind of feel the momentum changing, and it's tough to do anything about that.

It's tough to -- yeah, you do everything in your control but you can still, it's hard to avoid that sort of feeling of things switching the other way.

Yeah, obviously we knew the situation, but, yeah, wasn't thinking about it directly in the match.