NITTO ATP FINALS

November 14, 2022

Thanasi Kokkinakis

Nick Kyrgios

Pala Alpitour, Torino

Press Conference

KOOLHOF-SKUPSKI/Kyrgios-Kokkinakis

6-7, 6-4, 10-5

THE MODERATOR: Thanasi, bad luck. You had a good first set. What happened after that? Did your level go down or they picked it up?

THANASI KOKKINAKIS: I just played one - a couple bad - service points. I didn't make a first serve. That's what broke me.

Then, yeah, same sort of thing early in the super tiebreak. Doesn't take much. It was close, but, yeah, didn't serve well enough in the second and third.

THE MODERATOR: Nick, anything?

NICK KYRGIOS: I mean, they were just unbelievable players. They completely outplayed us. On a different level of tennis, I thought. We're just nowhere near that level.

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. Nick, you've been sometimes critical about hard surfaces and balls. How do you find this one? From outside, it look pretty slow.

THANASI KOKKINAKIS: It's quick, man. Completely the opposite (laughter).

NICK KYRGIOS: Quick. Every time the ball hit the line, it was skidding through, coming quick. Yeah, I mean, the court was low-bouncing.

Q. Was it difficult to come from Mexico, reach Turin? Did you have any problems? Are you happy you made it? What do you expect if you go on or don't go on? If you don't, will you leave immediately?

NICK KYRGIOS: I think we had every opportunity to win this match today. Me and Thanasi are probably the outliers of every other doubles players here. We like to prioritize singles and we know we're the better tennis players at the end of the day. We don't need to have weeks of, preparation honestly, for doubles. Honestly, my preparation wasn't ideal. But I still fell all right today. We could have won today.

Yeah, if we progress through the group, I'll stay, because that's what happens when you win the group, you go forward and stay a day. If we don't progress, I'll probably go home, yeah.

Q. How is your energy level after a long year?

THANASI KOKKINAKIS: I mean, I should be all right. It was a hell of an effort from Nick to come after all the travel. Arrived like 1 a.m. last night. I just see him rockin' up first thing in the morning with a coffee mug in hand. Pretty funny (laughter).

Hell of an effort for him to come down here. I know he's had a big year. Really happy we got a chance to play here. There is not much in it. Hopefully we can play better the second and third matches, see what happens.

NICK KYRGIOS: I mean, well, yeah, the schedule is pretty brutal for Australians. We have to fly 56 hours to every tournament. We get a couple months at home per year where everyone else gets six months.

My energy levels are pretty down. I wouldn't mind to see how we go here, but looking forward to going home, yeah.

Q. I want to know which is the best quality you recognize in Nick, like a human being and like a tennis player?

THANASI KOKKINAKIS: I thought you were looking at him the whole time (laughter).

Q. Which is the most difficult thing to do together on court and outside the court?

THANASI KOKKINAKIS: What?

Q. You do a lot of things together, okay, on court and outside the court.

THANASI KOKKINAKIS: Yeah.

Q. What is the most difficult to do with Nick?

THANASI KOKKINAKIS: What do you mean 'difficult'?

Q. Arrange restaurant, to go out...

THANASI KOKKINAKIS: Man, I don't even know how to answer that.

There's not much difficult, to be honest. We've known each other for a while. We get along well. No, nothing difficult. He's good to have around (smiling).

That's weird.

NICK KYRGIOS: Good one (laughter).

Q. It's been a long time since Australians made this event. What's the experience been like? At the start of the year you probably wouldn't have thought of being in the year-end championships. How has the experience been for you all?

NICK KYRGIOS: I mean, it's been good. Look, me and Thanasi never thought we were going to be here at the end-of-the-year finals. We always thought we could do some good things together, but to put a year consistently like this, and we didn't even play, we played maybe six or seven events or something, so...

Yeah, the experience has been cool. I still feel like the grind of tennis for Australians is widely underappreciated. Like, we've been on the road pretty much all year. The amount of time away from home, trying to play singles and doubles at events, all the physio, late nights, this type of stuff, massively underappreciated.

People are like, It's the first team in however long... People don't really understand how hard it was. But, yeah, the experience is cool.

If it wasn't him, I wouldn't be here, to be honest. I'm just being honest.

THANASI KOKKINAKIS: Yeah, no, it's been a cool experience. Obviously everything is A1 here. You're a select few. Everyone deserves to be here. You're playing against quality players. So it's the best of the best.

Yeah, it's been awesome. I was curious to see what London would have been like. Turin, you can tell the fans really love it. They're stacked outside the hotel just waiting for the big guys to come through. Then they have their phone out. They see me roll up, and you just hear this sigh of disappointment when I roll in (laughter).

No, it's fun, man. It's a cool experience.

Oh, no, Kokkinakis. Where is Kyrgios (laughter)?

NICK KYRGIOS: You're an idiot (laughter). So funny.

Q. This morning there were a lot of younger people, children. You are kind of idol for them. How do you feel?

NICK KYRGIOS: We're really bad role models. We're bad for the sport. No one loves watching us play. We're not crowd are favorites. We're just negative people.

Yeah, so, I don't know. I don't think that statement was correct by you. No one was there to watch us play today.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you.