DAVIS CUP FINALS

November 22, 2023

Tomas Machac

Team Czechia

Press Conference

T. MACHAC/J. Thompson

6-4, 7-5

Team Australia - 0

Team Czechia - 1

THE MODERATOR: Questions in English, please.

Q. Congratulations for the win. Another win for the Czech Republic after the wonderful group stage. Can be the Czech Republic the surprise of these Finals?

TOMAS MACHAC: Hello. Thank you so much. Yes, we arrive here to make a surprise, as you said. I think we have a strong team, young team. So I think we can go through the tournament pretty far if we will work hard and do everything what we could.

But always, it's tennis. You never know. As you said, we are, like, outsiders, but level I think is pretty good now, and we can compete against the best ones.

Q. In the semifinals, there will be two outsiders: Czech Republic and Finland. What do you think about Finland?

TOMAS MACHAC: Still, let's focus to Australia. It's not victory yet.

But you never know. You can play against the best ones. You can compete pretty well, and you can lose against Finland, you can lose with us. It's tennis.

So you never know, but what you can do is to go on the court and to play the best what you can and to fight as possible.

Q. On the match today, how pleased were you with your level? Were you expecting to play Jordan Thompson? It seemed like it was quite a good matchup for you with him coming forward, and you were able to pass him?

TOMAS MACHAC: Thank you so much. I was really pleased with my fighting spirit today. So this was the main goal today, and I managed to do it pretty well.

I'm, let's say, I can give myself No. 1 for this match, because I did everything what I could.

Q. When you were going into the match, what was your game plan against Jordan? Jordan was saying a little while ago that he just felt really frustrated playing this match. He felt your serve was a big factor.

TOMAS MACHAC: Maybe can you repeat the question? What was the question?

Q. What was your mindset? What was your plan going in to play today against Jordan? He said he felt frustrated that he wasn't able to get through.

TOMAS MACHAC: Okay.

Q. And he felt that your serve was a factor.

TOMAS MACHAC: Well, I had some little tactic against him. I was playing in Miami against him. I lost that match. It was tough one, and I think Jordan is really good, a great player. The main goal today was, as I said before, the fighting spirit, for sure.

There was games I was serving pretty well, but there was also the games I didn't serve well, and I was just playing baseline tennis. Maybe the games when I was serving well it was tough to break me, but there was some opportunities on my serve also with my mistakes and everything, but as I said, it's tennis. I'm pretty happy with this result, for sure.

Q. Can you explain what happened at 2-1 in the first set when I think you were sort of touching your chest and you went to sit down? What was going on there?

TOMAS MACHAC: I had a little heartbeat up, but it happened to me several times already. It's nothing, nothing dangerous (knocking on the desk) and I'm used to it. I think it's pretty normal when somebody, after illness, or somebody is tired or something, it's pretty normal.

But I just took one or two minutes to settle down, and everything was fine. It was just, let's say, short break (smiling).

Q. I think you have won 22 of your last 26 matches now across all levels. I'm just wondering, looking ahead to next season, have you got a ranking goal in mind? Is there any sort of one part of your game that you feel like you can improve to help get you there?

TOMAS MACHAC: I don't have any ranking, let's say, ranking, as you said, I don't have any rankings -- I don't know the word in English now. But my goal is to play better, to focus on the few things on my court, my mindset also, so I'm working on that, and hopefully it will go up.

Q. You were working with Joakim Nystrom for a while, weren't you?

TOMAS MACHAC: What?

Q. You were being coached by Joakim Nystrom for a while?

TOMAS MACHAC: Who?

Q. The Swedish player.

TOMAS MACHAC: No. No, I didn't.