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CHINA OPEN

October 10, 2010

Bob Bryan

BEIJING, CHINA

BRYAN-BRYAN/Fyrstenberg-Matkowski
6-1, 7-6

THE INTERPRETER: Questions, please.

Q. Did you expect your opponents to put up such a fight in the second set? What changed and how did you cope with it?
MIKE BRYAN: We played them, this is our fifth time this year, and we lost to them the first two times. I think we have lost to them five or six times. We have had a lot of battles, so we had a lot of momentum going on.
In the first set it was 6-1, I think, 2-1 in about 25 minutes. In this format it can get pretty sticky pretty quick. We are pretty fortunate to break back in the second, and we were really happy to go to the tiebreaker. And then anything can happen, and I thought we played a great tiebreaker, especially that 5-All point, was probably the point of the match. I think it was a long baseline rally, and we had a couple of good shots.

Q. Do you realize you are the first defending champion in the China Open regardless the singles and doubles in the seven-year history? How do you think about that?
BOB BRYAN: That's great for us to, you know, to defend the title. It's always fun to come and do a tournament as a defending champion and then to defend it is even better. I think the reason why we play so well here is we like coming to Beijing. It's a nice hotel. This facility is one of the best if not "the" best in the world, and we feel a lot of love from the Chinese fans.
Like I said out there, I think they are some of the best in the world, really passionate about tennis. They're always giving us gifts. Yeah, it's a lot of fun to come here and I think it reflects on our play.

Q. I saw one of you guys got hit by the ball. Does it affect you and does it happen often?
MIKE BRYAN: In every match it's quick. You know, doubles you're close to the net and they're hitting pretty hard. Yeah, we probably get hit, you know, once every couple matches. You know, it stings, but it's not a bullet. It's a tennis ball.
Actually, I think it hit my racquet. I just fell down. I was acting a little bit. You know, it didn't affect us.

Q. How do you balance your time between tennis and music?
BOB BRYAN: Well, tennis is what pays the bills. Obviously that's our first priority. That's what we've done our whole life. But music is a great love of ours. You know, we spend hours each day playing music. When we're at home, especially, we play five, six, seven, eight hours in our music room every day. It doesn't take a lot out of your body like tennis does.
You know, you feel a little achy after you play two hours on the court. You can do music all day. It's something that we want to do after tennis, for sure. It's great, takes our mind off the game.

Q. It's definitely one of your best seasons in your career winning 10 titles already, if I'm not mistaken. How do you think of your year? Also, you're going to play Shanghai. Is there any new goal for you to maybe dominate in Asia and also in the London finals?
MIKE BRYAN: Yeah, 2010 has been a dream year, 10 titles so far. I don't think we've ever had 10 at this mark. We're 10-0 in finals. We've never been perfect, so we're really happy.
You know, in Shanghai we want to go in there and play well and win it. You know, we still have four tournaments the rest of the year and we're trying to go for No. 1.
So, you know, if we do well there we can maybe clinch it. We're hoping to put in a good showing.

Q. Back to the music question. You are the rock 'n roll star on the court. Definitely you have a lot of fans in China. Will you hold a concert at the China Open in the future?
BOB BRYAN: Yeah, I mean, we don't know a lot of musicians in Beijing. You'll have to set it up. But if you set it up, we'll play.
In Shanghai they do that for us. They have a stage and musicians there with equipment and we always love to jump onstage and play.
You set it up, and we'll be there. (Laughter.)

Q. Is it true that you guys won't play each other like during singles?
MIKE BRYAN: You know, we don't play a lot of singles anymore. Growing up, that was my parents' philosophy: They didn't want us to battle against each other until we were mature enough to handle the losses.
If your twin brother is beating you, you know, you might lose confidence and might quit the game. You never want to lose to your brother.
But we play -- you know, we play a lot of baseline games and in practice we play every day.
I'm usually the winner.
BOB BRYAN: Nope. (Laughter.) Definitely not.

Q. Any new information about the new candidate of the Davis Cup team captain? And also, if you have to choose, who is the best partner in the mixed double match in 2012 in London Olympics?
BOB BRYAN: Well, I mean, regarding that, mixed doubles, we're very happy to see mixed doubles in the Olympics.
It's another chance to win a medal for your country. You know, in 2004 it was a little frustrating. We were so close. We made the quarterfinals, but we only had one opportunity. We lost one match and we were flying home with nothing.
Yeah, we're happy to have two opportunities. You know, Michael Phelps gets to swim in 10 races or something. It doesn't seem fair. I'm going to obviously play with one of the Williams sisters. Seems like they can carry me to a medal. (Laughter.)
Mike, he wants to play with one, too. Roddick wants to play with one. There's only two sisters but there's five guys. Maybe we have to tear them apart. (Laughter.)
Regarding the Davis Cup, you know, there's a lot of great candidates out there. Specifically we talked to Jim Courier a couple of times about it, and I think he would be great. He was a great Davis Cup player himself. He has a lot of experience. He knows the game. He plays music. He doesn't have a big ego. He'd be great with the players.

Q. (Question off microphone.)
BOB BRYAN: I haven't heard of a decision, no.

Q. I may have asked this question some other time before, guys, but there are certain national associations of which Britain is one that counts doubles success amongst its measure of success of the tennis overall. I'm not sure if it happens in the USA, but do you think it's justifiable that doubles should be considered in a sense an equal of singles in terms of the success of the sport?
BOB BRYAN: I mean, yeah, we do, but I think it comes down to fans and media. You know, TV makes stars, like we've said in the past. You know, there's going to be more people coming to singles matches because they want to see the likes of Roger Federer who they see on TV. You want to see the stars.
We're doing all we can to get doubles up there. We think it's a great sport. We want to keep its place in tennis history, and we're happy with the way it's going, but we think it can even get bigger and better.

End of FastScripts

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CHINA OPEN

October 10, 2010

Mike Bryan

Bob Bryan