Former University of North Carolina men’s tennis All-America Rinky Hijikata teamed with fellow Australian Jason Kubler to win the 2023 Australian Open men’s doubles championship on Sunday at Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne, Australia.
The following is a transcription of Hijikat and Kubler’s post-championship press conference.
Sunday, 29 January 2023
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Rinky Hijikata, Jason Kubler Press Conference
HIJIKATA-KUBLER/Nys-Zielinski
6-4, 7-6
THE MODERATOR: Congratulations, amazing match. Talk us through the match. At the beginning of the tournament, did you let yourselves think could be a real possibility?
RINKY HIJIKATA: No. No, not in the slightest. I think we were just happy to be in the draw, to be honest. We looked at our draw, we were like, Geez, if we could win one match or so, that would be a pretty good effort. I don’t even know. It’s been a ridiculous two weeks. Yeah, I mean, I can’t really put it into words. Yeah, it’s been an absolute blast. I can’t really believe this just happened.
JASON KUBLER: Yeah, no, same as Rinky. I think right now it actually hasn’t sunk in, what we’ve done, what we’ve accomplished. It probably still feels like we have another match in a couple days or something like that. I think after we wake up tomorrow, I think we’ll really realize what we’ve just done. I saw a photo after our semi, it said we only won eight or nine matches on the ATP Tour before. Now we have a Grand Slam title. Even just to say that…For me, I didn’t know if that was ever going to come true. For Rinky to be 21, have a Grand Slam under his belt already, it’s pretty exciting. Tonight we’ll definitely enjoy it. I think tomorrow when Rinky has gone to his next tournament, I’m probably going home, it will really sink in and we’ll realize what we’ve done.
THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.
Q. Talk us through the match point.
RINKY HIJIKATA: I mean, I had no clue what was going on. Kubs swatted two balls back. I absolutely stacked it. To be honest, I’m a bit dirty that that’s my match point, winning a slam on that. Yeah, I do look pretty uncool there. I just watched it. It’s pretty bad. I don’t know what I did. Yeah, I don’t know. I guess just super lucky there, to be honest. All luck. I didn’t really know much about that country. Kubs did well to get those two balls back. I’m pretty sure I…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at University of North Carolina Athletics…