BNP PARIBAS OPEN

October 16, 2021

John Peers

Filip Polasek

Press Conference

PEERS-POLASEK/Karatsev-Rublev

6-3, 7-6

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. John, your thoughts, comments?

JOHN PEERS: It's been a fun ride so far with Filip. We have continued working hard, progressing nicely. I think the last few events has really shown what we can start to do. We kept at it today. The boys we played today, they're always tough, especially when one of the them starts lighting it up on like that on returns, makes it tough for us.

We stayed at it, kept enjoying it, kept battling. It is great to get our first Masters title together, which is a lot of fun.

Q. Filip, you needed the physio out there. You rolled your ankle?

FILIP POLASEK: Yeah, I was trying a little bit to fake the motion, trying to give him little bit of tough time. At that time I just twist the ankle in and out. Yeah, wasn't the best after it. I felt it a bit. Also, I mean, I take some painkillers. As that comes up, I mean, it was pretty okay at the end of the match.

Q. How did you all get together?

JOHN PEERS: I sent Filip a message around Wimbledon time when we were both looking for partners. Filip came back to me a few days later and we said, All right, let's give it a crack. Simple as that. Timing was good.

Q. Are you expecting this to continue for the absolute long-term or the end of the year or what?

JOHN PEERS: Yeah, no, we'll definitely play next year together. Yeah, no, that's the game plan. So, yeah, hopefully it's a nice long one.

Q. Are you looking forward to getting home?

JOHN PEERS: Very much so. Got the family now with me, which is fantastic, which makes life a lot easier. Now we're just looking at options to try to get home for the Aussie summer, see where we are for Christmas.

Q. Where will you go now? Back to the UK?

JOHN PEERS: Yeah, go back to the UK for a week, then we play Vienna, Paris, Stockholm, see how the rest of the year pans out. See what regulations are to come back in Aus. Where we spend Christmas, hopefully things keep opening up like the rest of the world. We'll see. Sort of out of our control. We have to make plans as best we can, make Plan A, B, C and D, see what happens.

Lucky enough worst case we'll be in London, coming for the Aussie Open.

Q. You can go into New South Wales.

JOHN PEERS: Just got to be able to get a flight there first.

Q. What do you think is helping the two of you all mesh?

JOHN PEERS: I think at the end of the day it took a couple of few matches to figure out what we needed to do really well. I think the more we spoke, like anything it's never easy to start a partnership and gel right from the beginning. I think the more time we spend together, the more we figure out each other's habits what we want to do, what each other wants to say at certain times, the right mentality for the team to gel right.

Sometimes some teams need a bit more, some teams need a bit less. That's probably what it took at the start for us. I think we found now a good happy medium for what we need. Team wise we are in a really good place. Excited to see what the future holds, especially with the way we started.

If you asked me when we were starting at Wimbledon, once we started on the hard we'd be doing this, sitting here like this, I'd say I'd take it 100%.