AUSTRALIAN OPEN

January 23, 2022

Xu Yifan

Yang Zhaoxuan

Press Conference

KUDERME-MERTENS/Xu-Yang

7-6, 6-4

THE MODERATOR: It was quite a tough match today; do you want to start by talking us through it?

XU YIFAN: I think it's a great match as a whole. I think our opponents played really well, especially in the second set. I think for us, I think we played all we have today, and we tried to play our games the whole match. I think we played pretty well, as well, it's just in some of the tight moments we didn't hold our service games. That's all we did.

Yeah, unfortunately.

Q. It looks to me you did not get a chance to compete very much at the end of last year; how difficult is it to come back on to the tour and not have so many tournaments behind you and play your best tennis?

XU YIFAN: Yeah, actually we decided not coming back on tour after the Olympic Games last year, so I think we stayed in China and we practiced together the whole time, and I feel pretty good.

Q. Do you feel like it makes it difficult, though, with a long break like that to come back and compete against the teams who have been playing all year long like that?

XU YIFAN: I think not really actually. I was doing a lot of different stuff in China, which I didn't expect, and I was quite happy.

Q. Were you able to play tournaments inside China at the end of last year?

XU YIFAN: Yeah, yeah, some tournaments.

Q. I also was curious, it looks like there's a chance that the tour may not have tournaments in China this year again because of the situation that's happening. Are you concerned about that as somebody who's a Chinese player not to have tournaments in your country? Could that be a problem for your career?

YANG ZHAOXUAN: I think fine, but because we ask for now we play some tournaments for outside, that's fine. But I don't know some players how they're feeling. I don't know some players for Chinese guys, I don't know these feelings --

XU YIFAN: If they feel sad if we don't have tournaments.

Q. Would you be sad as Chinese players not to be able to play tournaments --

XU YIFAN: I think I always enjoy the tournaments in China, wherever we play.

Q. Do you think it's important that the tour has events in China because of the sport's future in your country?

XU YIFAN: Yeah, for us, especially for Chinese players, we all enjoy. We like to have tournaments, yeah.

Q. How challenging has it been for you as players during the pandemic to be able to practice, to play, to train? Have you had any problems at all?

XU YIFAN: Yeah, it's been quite easy, yeah. She's from Beijing, I'm from Tianjin. I've been traveling more than her back and forth, and yeah, it's quite easy, and we practiced the whole time, yeah.

Q. When you're in China you train in Tianjin or Beijing?

XU YIFAN: Beijing.

Q. Do you have any thoughts on the Peng Shuai situation at all and what's happening with that?

YANG ZHAOXUAN: I don't know.

XU YIFAN: Not really. We didn't really focus on it. We just tried to focus on our tennis most of the time.