THE CHAMPIONSHIPS

July 10, 2019

Andy Murray
Serena Williams

Wimbledon, London, England

SOARES-MELICHAR/Murray-Williams

6-3, 4-6, 6-2

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. Serena, to follow up on yesterday's discussion about your magazine piece
that just came out. You spoke about how you've done a lot of reflecting about
what happened last September, had counseling about it. As time has passed by,
how do you view your own actions that night and your reactions on court?
SERENA WILLIAMS: I would prefer to talk about tennis questions. I think I
kind of wrote down all my feelings on that. I was really open and raw about
it. If we could stick to other topics, it would be great.

Q. Obviously they're the top seeds, a good team. What made the difference
today in this match?
ANDY MURRAY: I mean, I thought, yeah, they played well. I think they played
quite a bit together. And, yeah, they were solid. I think we were probably a
little bit more up and down than them throughout. They were more consistent.

Bruno played a bad game on his serve at 5-4 in the second set. Apart from
that, we weren't getting lots of free points. We were having to work for
every game.

Yeah, they deserved to win.

Q. You seem to have a lot of fun together. Did this perhaps whet your
appetite to team up again, US Open, down the road?
SERENA WILLIAMS: We had so much fun. We aren't ready for it to be over. But
we both are obviously focused on our health, both of us actually, taking it
literally one day at a time, seeing what happens from there.

Q. Have you got any plans this evening to celebrate together on your long run?
ANDY MURRAY: We don't usually celebrate after losing.

SERENA WILLIAMS: Right? We did have a good tournament. I think overall we
played really well for our first time to play together.

ANDY MURRAY: Yeah.

SERENA WILLIAMS: I don't know the last time you played mixed. I haven't
played in forever.

Yeah, like I said, we're celebrating the fact that we're feeling better. We
want to just continue to do better. I'm still in the singles, so I just keep
going for that.

Q. Andy, can you sum up what you think you've achieved over the last few
weeks? Talk the practicalities now of going forward, what happens? Is it
medical testing, talk to your team?
ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, so, I mean, I think I achieved a lot. Got on the court. I
think, considering the lack of matches, I did okay. The most positive thing
is that my body felt good. My hip anyway was feeling good, so that was
positive.

Yeah, it's a lot of physical work now trying to get stronger really, get a
good balance with all of the kind of muscles around my hip. Yeah, I think I'm
doing some physical testing next week. I did some pre-Queen's. It will be
interesting to see what's happened these last four weeks where I've been
obviously playing tennis but doing not much training, to see how things have
progressed or not.

Then, yeah, I'll kind of do sort of four to six weeks of training. Then I'll
have some testing done after that again. Hopefully I will have progressed
again. But I still got, like I said, quite a long way to go.

Q. Apart from your personal reasons for wanting to play, which we all know,
millions of people play mixed doubles, club players. Do you think you've
given them a bit of a lift, putting mixed in the spotlight, help the game at
that level?
SERENA WILLIAMS: It's an interesting look on it. It's definitely something
that I see in my community all the time in Florida. So many people playing
mixed doubles. It's super fun.

Yeah, I mean, any visibility positive on the sport is always really good for
the sport.

Q. There's so many ATP-WTA combined events on the calendar these days. Mixed
doubles is really only around at the Grand Slams and Olympics. Do you think
there should be more looking into getting tournaments like Indian Wells or
Miami to add mixed doubles? Do you think there's opportunities being missed?
SERENA WILLIAMS: I mean, it's hard to say. There's so many amazing matches
already. It's not like it's a two-week event. We usually start those
tournaments like on a Wednesday, sometimes Tuesday. Those extra days really
matter and really count.

Then the schedule is already so, so difficult. It sounds good, it sounds
really exciting. But the big question is will it work. Will one of the
tournaments take a chance on it? Maybe. We'll have to see.

It's all about trying. Who knows if it will work or not.

Q. What has it been like for you doing press together? What's the most
interesting part, strangest part? What observations did you make on the
questions, because you get different kind of questions?
SERENA WILLIAMS: Andy gets asked every question about his body and the US
Open. Literally every question in a different way, but it's the same question
(smiling).

It's great for me because I get to sit here and just look. My thing is just
to stay focused and not look like I'm daydreaming. But it's nice because I
love him having all the attention. It's so good. It's such a relief.

Q. What about you, Andy?
ANDY MURRAY: Honestly, I haven't given it much thought.

SERENA WILLIAMS: How is your body?

ANDY MURRAY: Feels good, thanks.

SERENA WILLIAMS: Are you going to be able to play New York?

ANDY MURRAY: I don't know. I need to train, get stronger. We'll see. I'm not
sure (laughter).

Q. Andy, we still have Evan Hoyt and Eden Silva in the mixed doubles
tomorrow. As a patriot, what do you think of the fact that we won't have a
big name going for one of the big trophies for home hopes this season?
ANDY MURRAY: I mean, I think that's the case for a lot of countries around
the world. Jo obviously made the quarters of the singles. I think a lot of
countries don't have players with the chance of winning Wimbledon.

I think what you kind of want to see is, it's always kind of the case, you
want to see more British players at the big events, getting in on their own
right without using wildcards. Ultimately I think that's how you should judge
success. It's so difficult to produce players to win major titles, but I
think it's a bit easier to have a system in place that allows players to
compete on the main tours.

It's not easy to produce a player like Serena, for example. Whereas, you
know, you can get more players that are ranked 80, 60, 50. That's kind of
what you want to see a little bit more of.

Q. You also said with BBC that Serena used quite a lot of foul language out
on the court.
SERENA WILLIAMS: In mixed? No way.

ANDY MURRAY: Did I say that? I don't think I said that.

Q. You said you were sharing some jokes but you couldn't repeat them.
ANDY MURRAY: That's different. That's how you interpreted it. I didn't say
she had a bad mouth (smiling).

Q. Is there anything you can share with us? I'm always intrigued what you say
to each other when you talk into your hands.
ANDY MURRAY: It's just tactics. Just tactics.

Q. You sure?
ANDY MURRAY: Very sure (smiling).

Q. You both have lovely daughters. You are a mom-and-dad combination. We know
Serena doesn't want her daughter to play tennis in the future. Andy, would
you like your daughter to play tennis in the future?
ANDY MURRAY: I mean, if she wanted to, yeah, I would support that. But, I
mean, she's three years old, so I have no idea whether she'll be into sport
or whatever. Whatever she decides to do, I'll support her 100%.

Q. Serena, do you change your idea?
SERENA WILLIAMS: No. I feel the same way. I wouldn't necessarily put her on
the tennis court every day and do all that. But if she wanted to play tennis,
I would totally support her and do whatever she wanted to do.

Q. Andy, from what you've learned of yourself over the last month or so, in
terms of the way you're playing, if and when you return to singles, do you
think you will play pretty much the same style you always played? Do you
think you'll need to play in a different way, perhaps, to look after your
body going forward?
ANDY MURRAY: It's a difficult one. I mean, I don't know. I would like to play
the way that I always played because it's been successful. I think you need
to always try and find that balance. Like, I could go out and serve and
volley every point, keep points short, lose in the first round every week.
Then I'd be getting killed when I came in here for losing in the first round
every week.

Might be better for my body. You need to find the right way of playing that,
yeah, would be good for your body but also allows you to be competitive and
win matches. I'll only really know once I get back out there and start doing
it. There's things I need to change, change and adapt.

From watching the bits that I have watched recently, I don't feel like the
game has changed a whole lot. Maybe when I get out there, it will have done.

It does seem like there's a few more of the bigger guys, bigger hitters,
which are out there, which is a positive thing, because that means shorter
points. But the courts are still pretty slow.

Q. Apologies for this question. It could be a good while before we see you
again. You're known for thoughtfulness on a number of matters. Are you
concerned and what are your thoughts about the situation with the ATP, with
the different resignations, the influence of certain individuals? Do you have
any thoughts about that?
ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, I mean, I think the whole situation is a shame really. I
think it just seems like there's so much, like, infighting in the sport. I
don't feel like that should be the case just now.

Tennis is doing really well. There should be lots of positive things
happening, positive discussions about how to drive the sport forwards and
improve.

It just seems like so many different people, organizations, are fighting, not
sort of coming together to try to find solutions. You want that to change
really. I'd like to see a little bit more unity. Yeah, once that's the case,
then you can start to move forward.

It just seems like there's a lot of division just now, so things aren't
progressing because everyone is disagreeing with each other all the time,
fighting. Yeah, that's never good.

Q. One of the benefits of having the both of you up there is sometimes it's
easier to answer questions about someone else. What did you each learn about
each other through this process that stood out to you both on and off the
court?
ANDY MURRAY: Do you want me to go first?

SERENA WILLIAMS: Yes.

ANDY MURRAY: Well, we don't know each other extremely well. Haven't spent
lots of time with Serena. I guess it was more a confirmation of something
that you would have expected from someone that's won as much as she's done.

It was just the fact that she was so into it, so competitive, which is cool.
I like that. Some people might just see it as being maybe mixed doubles.
We're playing it to have fun and get matches.

But a genuine kind of desire and will to win, which I would have expected
that to have been the case, but I didn't know that about her. Never spent any
time on the court with her. That was the thing that was nice whilst we were
on the court. She was really into wanting to win and pumped. I like that.

You don't have to. Don't worry about it.

SERENA WILLIAMS: I just love Andy's spirit. It's so fun to play with him.
He's so calm and chill. I loved having the support. It was amazing. Hopefully
I can still have it.

I think to play on this stage with Andy, who has done so well here for so
many years, is literally just a lifetime experience. I'm so happy that I got
to experience it.

It's fun to get to know him as well because, like he said, we don't really
know each other that well. It's cool to see people you see on TV and you
watch and study, to actually be on the same side as them, to pick their brain
a little bit, to help them out, it's a really cool feeling.

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