AUSTRALIAN OPEN

January 26, 2025

Harri Heliovaara

Henry Patten

Press Conference

HELIOVAARA-PATTEN/Bolelli-Vavassori

6-7, 7-6, 6-3

THE MODERATOR: Gentlemen, congratulations. The Australian Open Men's Doubles title. What were you thinking after that first set, which went for close to an hour and a half?

HARRI HELIOVAARA: Yeah, I lost count how many set points we have, and that doesn't happen often. Usually I'm pretty good with math.

I told our coach, Calvin, I went to approach him during the set break when they took a toilet break, and we can go talk to coach. I said to Calvin, I still believe we are the better team on court.

Sometimes it just doesn't go your way. We had breakpoints on five of their service games, and they just managed to get out of almost everything.

It's part of doubles, part of tennis. You have to respect the game. Sometimes the opponents play well when it matters. We still had two more sets to play and believed -- felt a little tired in second set. Found some energy somehow.

That's how we did it at Wimbledon last summer. Lost the first 6-7 with set point and then came back and won the title. That's how we do it apparently.

THE MODERATOR: Questions.

Q. Henry, 15-40 down serving for the title. Were you very clear-minded, or were there a lot of thoughts in your head?

HENRY PATTEN: It's a weird one. I didn't actually feel that tight, but I served like I was very tight. I was almost too tired to really feel really, really nervous, but obviously I was aware of the situation.

Yeah, I got a bit lucky. I managed to find some first serves, though, when it mattered. Yeah, I mean, just relief to get over the line.

Q. What were you saying to him, Harri? You were shaking your head.

HARRI HELIOVAARA: 15-40, I had to tell him where to serve, and he hit an ace there, so I'm pretty happy about that. 30-40 got a little lucky. I think Simone had a chance to, yeah, punish us from a bad volley, but when we won that point, I had very good feeling this is coming home.

Q. How do you keep your mental strength through all of this? I mean, a match like that, three hours, all those set points, breakpoints, whatever. How do you do it?

HENRY PATTEN: I think it's boring that it comes down to a lot of practice. We play a lot of tennis, and we're always in those competitive situations. That's even when we're practicing.

I've said it before, but I have full faith and knowledge that Harri is going to absolutely compete his heart out every single point until the end of the match, and I think he thinks the same of me as well, no matter what the situation is.

But, yeah, that obviously takes time to develop that skill. Yeah, good few years now.

Q. What's it like trying to play for one of the biggest wins of your career at this time in the morning? Do you think the final should have been scheduled at a different time?

HARRI HELIOVAARA: I have never, ever played tennis at this time of the day. I have to say that. I don't know if the opponents did it too, but there were a couple of times during the match I was feeling a little tired, and then I realized that everybody must be feeling tired. That's not an excuse because everybody else would also have the same excuse.

You just kept going, keep caffeine, extra gels in the second set. I'm so proud that at home with my coach we have had some evening sessions. We go on court at 10:00 p.m. to practice these kind of situations. We haven't done it often, but even those few times that we did it, gives me something for this match. Wait, I have done this in practice, played late, how it feels, nervous, slow, too fast.

It feels different playing at 1:30 a.m., of course, but just have to be the best you can be at that exact moment and don't think of anything else.

Q. Is it the right thing to be playing a final at that time?

HENRY PATTEN: Well, I don't know. I guess on one hand you would say, no, because look how late we finished, but then on the other hand, you say, well, I don't know how long it was, but it was, what, three hours. Then it makes it difficult to put that before a woman's single final and get a crowd in for it.

I don't know. It's difficult. Obviously it's not ideal for, you but like Harri said, it's the same for everyone. Everyone out there. Yeah, at the end of the day it's up to the tournament, and we have to get on with it.

HARRI HELIOVAARA: Lucky for Finnish and British fans. That was perfect primetime Saturday afternoon.

Q. How do you reassess your goals now that you have two slams? What lies ahead for you? How do you readjust after that?

HARRI HELIOVAARA: I think our goal for this year was top 10. They ask us at Wimbledon, What's next? We said, Win another slam. Wow, it's January.

HENRY PATTEN: Five slams (laughing).

HARRI HELIOVAARA: I think we keep on riding the wave. Good things are happening. Let's not stop here. We have three more slams this year. We have the Masters 1000 where we never have had success in the past because we haven't played many of them. We're still a very young team. Just keep going higher and higher and never know where you end up.

Q. Speaking of young team, how do you explain or understand what you guys are accomplishing after a year together, whatever, two slams? What's the secret sauce?

HENRY PATTEN: I like Harri, and Harri likes me. We get along on court very well. I think our personalities complement each other very well on court.

Harri is the energy guy. The camera always cuts to him at the end of the match, which is really annoying, but that is his job to fire himself up to fire me up. My job is to be kind of the big, hard-hitting, calm guy. Those two things apparently work very, very well together.

And we work pretty hard at it. I'm really, really proud of us because we had a couple of tough weeks in Brisbane and Adelaide leading into this. We had to really work on some things, and I think all of that hard work has paid off.

Well, yeah, obviously, it has paid off. I'm just very proud of us as a pair and how we work together.

Q. A lot has been said about the success of the British doubles system, but Harri, you're actually the second Finnish person in recent years to win the Australia Open in men's doubles. I wonder if you could talk about any influence that Henri Kontinen has had on you?

HARRI HELIOVAARA: I will say he's the reason I play doubles, for sure. I didn't play tennis for almost five years, and I saw him as the No. 1 in the world. I wanted to play Olympics with him.

I never ever ever dreamed of having same success that he had. I thought he was a big role model for me with his ability to hit anyone off the court, but I worked hard. I cannot believe that I have more slams than him now. It makes no sense to me.

HENRY PATTEN: That is crazy.

HARRI HELIOVAARA: That is crazy.

HENRY PATTEN: It's not right.

HARRI HELIOVAARA: Of course, he stopped playing quite young. He probably could have won a few more. Yeah, he's a very big role model for me. Especially showed that doubles career is possible coming from Finland. Like you said, the British school of doubles is probably almost as big a reason that I'm here.

I've learned so much so quickly. I think many others, they spend many, many years going towards the top of the doubles game, but it just accelerates the path so much when you have coaches like Calvin and Louis Cayer, who know doubles and tell you what to do, and you just listen to them, listen to them and keep working.

Q. Henry, I asked you what you are going to spend your Wimbledon winnings on after Wimbledon, and you said it was going straight into savings. What are you going to buy your partner with some of your winnings? What is the ideal gift for your doubles partner?

HENRY PATTEN: Yeah, my tennis partner. What am I going to buy him?

Q. Yeah. Same to you, Harri. Henry is not going to spend any money on himself.

HARRI HELIOVAARA: I've never bought him a gift.

HENRY PATTEN: I've never bought Harri a gift.

HARRI HELIOVAARA: Not even for Christmas. I feel bad now. I think I would buy Henry something for his cat, and that would make Henry very happy.

HENRY PATTEN: True. Well, I could say I would buy you something for your dog, but that would be boring. I don't know. I would feel bad about buying you anything. I think I would buy something for his wife and his kids, yeah, because they work much harder than him at home.

HARRI HELIOVAARA: That is true.

HENRY PATTEN: Especially his wife, and that would do him a favor as well.