UNITED CUP

January 2, 2024

Edouard Roger-Vasselin

Adrian Mannarino

Caroline Garcia

Team France

Press Conference

GARCIA-ROGER-VASSELIN/Kerber-Zverev

7-6, 2-6, 12-10

Team France - 2

Team Germany - 1

THE MODERATOR: Congrats, Team France. A long evening. Can you sum up in your own words, Edouard first, then Caroline and Adrian, your experience tonight, and looking ahead to playing Italy on Wednesday.

CAPTAIN EDOUARD ROGER-VASSELIN: Yeah, definitely a great first day of the year. Terrific match, terrific end of the match. I mean, yeah, it was crazy atmosphere. We had a lot of French crowd or so in the stadium still at this time.

Yeah, overall the tie was really, really tough. I mean, Adrian played a great match against Zverev. It was high quality. Congrats to Zverev, of course, for winning this one.

Then Caroline had, let's say, a slow start --

CAROLINE GARCIA: No (smiling).

CAPTAIN EDOUARD ROGER-VASSELIN: But then, yeah, she really found a rhythm. Then she was back in mixed. We played great. Had maybe low performance myself into the second set, and then we managed to find the good energy to win this one.

Yeah, definitely really happy of this day.

CAROLINE GARCIA: Yeah, I mean, I think Edouard say it all, but it was definitely some tight matches from Adrian until the end.

Yeah, I mean, both teams could deserve the win, and it was played on very little point at the end. In the super tiebreak, it was obviously a great match, great quality, a lot of intensity from both team. I had a lot of fun playing with Edouard. It was definitely fun.

Yeah, to have all the bench behind us supporting us for the singles and doubles, and then yeah, good French crowd. It's always special here in Australia for us.

ADRIAN MANNARINO: Well, it's never fun to lose a match, but I think the day is ending pretty well. I was happy to go and cheer for Caro. She played a great two sets to finish the match. The dubs was really high quality match, too.

It's pretty good, I think, for the rest of the competition, because they showed some really great things on the court today. I think we're gonna be a pretty consistent team.

THE MODERATOR: Questions.

Q. What was it like to hear the French crowd singing the whole tiebreak? What's going through your mind when you hear that?

CAROLINE GARCIA: Yeah, it was great. It's very far from home. Obviously it's a team event. So it's always great, already great to have the bench behind us, because they were really cheering out very loudly.

Obviously we can see in the city there is a lot of French people, and it was nice to hear them in the crowd. I got some similar experience last year in Melbourne, and obviously to be Down Under in Australia and have all the crowd behind us and being super loud, it's great fun also. It's why I believe I play tennis, but I believe we also play tennis for that, to leave great emotion out there. It's great to be able to give them the win as well.

Q. For mixed doubles, the ties here in Sydney have gone to a deciding mixed doubles. How fun has that been for you to see?

CAPTAIN EDOUARD ROGER-VASSELIN: It's fun if you win definitely (smiling). No, super tight matches, always, the mixed, it's really different, and it's never easy to finish a match. It's always tricky. We have a lot of great players, so it's really, really tough.

We'll see. We might have some other deciding mixed, so we will be ready.