GREAT OCEAN ROAD OPEN

February 7, 2021

Jamie Murray

Press Conference

MURRAY-SOARES/Cabal-Farah

6-3, 7-6

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. How are you looking forward to the Australian Open starting?

JAMIE MURRAY: I'm excited for Australian Open to start. We just had a great week there winning our first tournament back, getting four good matches under our belt after a long time of no tennis. Really excited. I think like a lot of the players get the chance to come here and play in a Grand Slam and hoping for two great weeks of tennis.

Q. Does it feel like coming back to an old friend, this partnership?

JAMIE MURRAY: Yeah, it was great, honestly. I think like the two-week training was great for us, like just to get on court with each other, get good vibes going, good energy. Had a lot of intense practices, had a lot of fun together and, yeah, look, we had a great week, obviously, to win the title here our first tournament back together, it's really exciting. Beat some top teams along the way. I think it kind of reinforces us what we can do when we put good performances out on the court each day.

Q. Talk about why you and Bruno complement each other so well, and given the Australian Open you won here, what, four years ago, five years ago, that must give you tremendous confidence going down into the next fortnight.

JAMIE MURRAY: Yeah, I think obviously it's nice to come back somewhere where you've won and had success. I think we -- we had three and a half great years together. We obviously know coming back together that if we work hard and have good energy and work together as a team, there's no reason why we can't be successful again. I think this week showed that. It gives us a lot of confidence going into the Australian Open next week.

Q. The match today, the second set I think they had four set points, something like that. Is it nice to have sort of one of those matches where the margins are so thin and to sort of click back into gear a little bit in a big moment?

JAMIE MURRAY: Yeah, it definitely gets the juices flowing, that's for sure. It gets the butterflies in the stomach. Yeah, for us like that's what we wanted. I wouldn't say the goal at the start of the week was to win the tournament, we just wanted to get out and compete hard, play some tough matches and get a lot of time on the match court.

So yesterday, we played two matches yesterday. It was quite a long day. We came through tiebreak in the first one, another tiebreak in the second one, second set, and we came through another tiebreak today where we saved set points, and the second set was really close all the way. So like I said before, we're really excited to get through them. I think it gives us a lot of confidence going into the Australian Open and obviously for future weeks, wherever that will be.

Q. What do you think about the play for the upcoming Australian Open?

JAMIE MURRAY: I think their level is incredibly high, like it always is. For me, like the season is always very long and they're always there, like every week they're there to compete. Every match they compete their asses off and that's what you have to do and that's why they have had a lot of success over the last few years. They won back-to-back Grand Slams. Obviously last year was a strange year, but they're going to be one of the top teams in the world again this year, for sure, yeah.

Q. The NTP thing, it's on front of my sports section today. It made quite a splash back here. So I guess the question is just did you have any issues with the protocols and stuff that were there?

JAMIE MURRAY: No, I mean, look, I think it was unfortunate what happened, that they had a bit of an outbreak. Obviously it happened to Andy, which is going to be big news, and in that short time where we had to be COVID-free in order to fly to Australia.

I think, look, I think overall from the beginning of the pandemic when they were able to open the center until now, like they have done an incredible job. Like they have; like there's no denying that. The setups that they had in place, the protocols, all that stuff, the testing, they have done a great job.

Obviously over Christmas it was like height of the virus for us, and players go off back home for a few days all over the country, various hot spots and stuff, and it seems like someone's obviously brought it back into the center and they haven't been tested and then it's kind of -- it's got out to players and coaches, which is unfortunate.

But me personally, I don't necessarily feel like it's their fault or it's them to blame. I think overall they have done an amazing job, and I think to keep -- to have the center open to give all the players opportunity to train all the way through the pandemic, for me it was impressive. It's just a shame that in this moment they got, they had some positive tests and it happened to be Andy, which is obviously a big shame with the amount of work that he's put in to get to this point to prepare himself for Australia, and all that's down the drain. Like I was gutted for him, obviously, as was he, I'm sure, very frustrated.

Q. To follow-up on that point, did you raise any concerns during your training block there and what lessons do you think will be learned from this particular episode, which has obviously become public today?

JAMIE MURRAY: Well I think they have already put more protocols in place and sort of scaled back on who is allowed in the center and at what times. So that, yeah, so they have obviously -- they're obviously addressing it, they have done and they will continue to do so, I'm sure. Yeah, so I can't really say more. Obviously I haven't been there for like almost four weeks now because I went to Dubai for a bit before coming here, so...