AUSTRALIAN OPEN

January 26, 2022

Andy Lapthorne

David Wagner

Press Conference

LAPTHORNE-WAGNER/Schroder-Vink

2-6, 6-4, 10-7

THE MODERATOR: Andy and David, congratulations on taking home the championship tonight. Talk us through the match and how it feels to have won this evening's final.

DAVID WAGNER: Thank you. Thank you all for being here. It's a pleasure for us to play tonight.

Yeah, that match was intense, and we're playing the Paralympic gold medalists from Tokyo and the Tour Finals champions. You're playing the future right there, and it's tough.

But, yeah, we stuck together and had a game plan and made it work. Andy hit some phenomenal shots. It was like sick to watch him push his chair and get to the balls that we needed him to get to.

Yeah, that was awesome. How does it feel to win? It feels F-word great (smiling).

THE MODERATOR: Questions?

Q. I was going to ask you a similar thing. How does it feel? To sort of come back from a set down must make it more satisfying, as well.

ANDY LAPTHORNE: Yeah, I mean, it's been an emotional 24 hours. I don't know if you've seen my social media but Isla Caton, a West Ham fan who we've all done a lot for as a fan base to try and raise money for to try and help her through her illness, unfortunately passed away. That was really playing on my mind the whole night and all day today. Just puts everything into perspective.

A set down and I'd usually be quite angry in that situation. I'm sort of looking up at the sky and thinking of other things and thinking of her and her family, and there's butterflies all over the court, and strange things like that happening.

Yeah, it just gave me that extra bit of drive and belief to push myself to try and beat two guys that are dominating right now, they're dominating our sport. Amazing to come from, be able to dedicate that win to her and her family. She meant a lot to everyone in East London. To get that win for her was pretty special for me and probably one of the biggest upsets of my career. To come back from a set down and beat those two guys will go down as one of my best wins for sure.

Q. What do you feel your strengths are as a partnership?

DAVID WAGNER: I think we kind of complement our games, complement each other pretty well. You know, Andy is a beast on the back and just can run down everything that everybody hits. I've never seen anybody who can get to as many balls as he gets to.

Then I try to kind of take up the front of the court, you know. I'm not as fast as these guys. Just try to use my hands and my touch, you know, get a few lucky looks here and there. Stick a ball once in a blue moon if I get a chance.

I think it just complements really well. You have the best guy who can run down balls in the back and then you have a decent guy up front. I think that just is a really good combination.

There's nothing, there's no big secret to what we're going to do. It's not like Andy is going to come forward and I'm going to dominate the baseline. We pretty much know, everybody knows what our game plan is. It's how we execute that game plan.

We talked about it before going in, and we were able to, like, remind each other of the things that we had talked about before the match.

Some of those things we could say to each other, and it was, like, Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right, that's what we should be doing. Trust that he can do it, trust that I can do it, and that combination just works really well.

Q. Well done on the win, both of you. I have no nerves left, though, so thank you for that. I mean, let's talk about that match tiebreak. I mean, it was intense, wasn't it? How do you mentally get through the intensity of a match tiebreak like that?

DAVID WAGNER: I don't think it was that intense. We knew we were going to win from the start. It was fine. No big deal. (Laughter.)

No, I think it's like I said with the last question that guys asked, we have a game plan and we trust each other, and you can't get down on each other when you miss a ball that you're trying to really do the right thing on. You're going to miss balls, right?

That was it. We just stayed on each other and with each other, together with each other, and we had some keywords to each other and we used those in the tiebreak. That really helped and was to our advantage.

Q. One thing I really noticed when you were on court is there was kind of, as people call them, the third player, the crowd, they really got behind you, didn't they, in those key moments? How much did that help?

ANDY LAPTHORNE: Yeah, I think being underdogs, people love getting behind an underdog, and having that support there from people really helps. Those guys are still quite young. So they're getting used to playing in front of crowds and playing in front of noise against them and stuff like that.

That probably helped us over the line. But obviously playing Roland Garros and playing the 10-point tiebreaker and playing Wimbledon and doing the same thing in the third set, it gives you confidence that if you can get into that situation, you've been there before, you've done it before, and you know how to play in those situations.

Q. Andy, I just want to ask you one final question. Obviously we have spoken over the week, and you've been frustrated sometimes with some of your performances, but you've got to be happy with that final performance, haven't you? And how you managed with grit and determination, both you and David, to grind that match out.

ANDY LAPTHORNE: Yeah, I mean, like I've said to you all week, my level has probably not been where I wanted it to be. I trained really well before I came here and it's not transferred onto the match court for whatever reason.

But when you get into a final like that, it's about just being in the match, being in the moment, and I think we did that quite well as a team.

Yeah, always nice to win. That's No. 15. So it's a nice number.

Q. Enjoy the beer, Andy.

ANDY LAPTHORNE: Thanks, I will. There's going to be a lot of these tonight. (Laughter.)

Q. Guys, well done. Congratulations. Andy, when we spoke a couple days ago you knew you were going to be underdog for singles and doubles for the next two days. Did the fact you were underdogs today, did that spur you on?

ANDY LAPTHORNE: Yeah, I'm used to that, being a West Ham fan, and it was nice. There was no pressure out there for us really. Those guys have been tearing through for pretty much everyone for a long while now. So we lost to them last week in the warmup event so we knew coming out that we would be underdogs, and it frees you up a little bit to play a bit freer.

I felt we did that on the big points and they probably played a bit tighter than what they usually would because they were probably expected to win.

Q. This is your fourth Aussie Open title together going back to 2014. Given that they are Paralympic champions, US Open champions, top seeds, does that make this one perhaps more special than the other three or not?

ANDY LAPTHORNE: Yeah, I think probably from the celebration at the end, you could see how much that one meant to me. Yeah, it was a tough proposition before the match to play those two guys. They can clean you off the court pretty quick if you're not playing well.

So to be able to beat them and be able to beat Sam and Dylan in two Grand Slam finals, as well, together, some of these doubles wins that we're managing to have as a team are pretty amazing to be fair to players that we've beaten on the other side of net.

This one for me probably is the best one we've had as a team. I'd say if you were into bookies, we'd probably be real long shots. So to be able to turn around and win that one was pretty special.

Q. And for you, David, how does today compare with the other Grand Slam titles with Andy?

DAVID WAGNER: Yeah, I mean, I agree. You know, you're playing the future of the sport, and those kids are strong and physical and good. We're just out there trying to survive against those guys sometimes.

Yeah, I mean, they're all, all wins are great. It's not every day you get to play for a Grand Slam title. So just to be able to do that and rekindle up that partnership with Andy is pretty awesome, you know. And to beat who is the best, really the best team out there right now, to be able to beat them is pretty satisfying, for sure.

Q. Is the plan to stay together for the next three Grand Slams?

ANDY LAPTHORNE: Yep, for sure.