Saturday, March 15, 2025

Marcelo Arevalo

Mate Pavic

Press Conference

AREVALO-PAVIC/Korda-Thompson

6-3, 6-4

THE MODERATOR: First of all, congrats, guys, for another Masters 1000 title under your belt and first one of this season, for sure. How happy are you throughout this week?

MARCELO AREVALO: Well, as you said, this is the first title and Masters 1000 title of this year for our team.

We extremely happy. We have been working pretty hard through the season. We started the season playing well, actually with a lot of confidence. We lost couple matches in the past few tournaments. Tough matches, tough losses, but we stayed positive and we knew that sooner or later we will have the chance and the opportunity to win again and go for something big.

MATE PAVIC: Yeah, not much to add on that. I mean, we are happy to win the title. It's a great week. Like Marcelo said, we are playing good also at the beginning of the year, and we lost some matches, tough losses last few weeks but kind of paid back this week and I think we played some good tennis this week.

THE MODERATOR: Questions.

Q. Marcelo, your partner now has 40 titles overall, the most of all the active players. My question to you is what makes him such a good partner?

MARCELO AREVALO: What makes Mate such a good partner? Well, I think Mate, he's been on tour for a while already. I think he was one of the youngest guys that turned No. 1 in doubles? If not the youngest, right?

MATE PAVIC: No, but one of them.

MARCELO AREVALO: One of the youngest, so he's been on top of the game for a while. He knows the game very well. He knows all the players.

He started the game well, and I think he, as I always tell him, you know, I'm pretty honest and I'm pretty humble to say it, I think Mate is the type of player when you need him, he's there. You know, like when the moment comes when the important moments come, when the important points arrive in the match, he's ready to compete in that moment.

I think that's what champions do, you know.

Q. Mate, was this a little bit of a redemption for you, having lost with Bethanie in the mixed doubles?

MATE PAVIC: Yeah, a little bit (smiling), for sure. That was actually a good, fun event that they put on, and it was some good matches.

I have to say the final was also, it was a good match with Italians. Stadium 3 was pretty much full. We were up I think 7-4 or something like that, 8-5, and in the end we lost it, but we were close and it was good fun.

Q. Marcelo, you had mentioned when you were on court, when you came here a few years ago, watching a match on Stadium Court, you always wanted to play there. Could you just talk a little bit more, share a little bit about what that meant to you to be able to play on Stadium Court this week?

MARCELO AREVALO: Yeah, I believe I came for the first time to play the singles qualifying draw here probably 10 years ago, 12 years ago. I came with my dad, and then, you know, the players, we get, like, access to one of the suites here in the stadium.

I remember staying, like, till late to watch all the matches with my dad, because I lost in the first round of qually or in the second round of quallies. So I was watching matches. At that point, you know, I was saying how nice it would be to play on this stadium, because I think it's one of the biggest stadiums possible to play tennis, you know.

So, yeah, it was kind of like a goal, kind of like a dream, you know, to play on that center court. Yeah, 10, 12 years later, I was able to play for the first time yesterday in the semifinal, and in that moment when I was here with my dad, it didn't even cross my mind to live the title in that court. It was kind of shocking.

Q. What was it like to have the El Salvadorian support there? Quite a few flags in the stands?

MARCELO AREVALO: It was nice. I was a bit tight today. I knew a lot of people were texting me since yesterday, like, hey, if you win, we all gonna drive over there and we're gonna support.

But it was nice, man. It was nice to see quite a few people from El Salvador supporting and see couple of flags, you know, like in such a big stadium in basically the fifth slam of everyone call it.

It was nice to see all those people cheering for me and Mate, and made an effort to be here today for the final.