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WIMBLEDONJune 25, 2014Andy MurrayLONDON, ENGLAND A. MURRAY/B. Rola THE MODERATOR: Questions, please. Q. The Duchess of Cornwell left Centre Court today so she could come and watch you. How pleased are you with that? ANDY MURRAY: Well, it's nice that she came to watch the match obviously. But, yeah, I don't really understand. Was it nice that she left the other court? Q. Yes. ANDY MURRAY: Well, it was nice that she came to watch me. That was it. Q. You threw your bands into the crowd at the end of the match, very close to the Duchess. I assume you weren't aiming for her? ANDY MURRAY: No, I wasn't. I've been doing that for about seven, eight years. No, I wasn't trying to throw it to anyone in particular. Q. How hard was it to sort of keep focused in the present? It was all going so well for you. ANDY MURRAY: I mean, it wasn't that hard, to be honest. You try to, you know, finish matches as quickly as you can. If you have the momentum with you and you're playing well, that's what you need to try to do. I spoke a little bit about the French Open a few weeks ago, some of the matches where I was ahead, you know, I didn't finish the sets and stuff off as best as I would have liked. So I wanted to make sure here that when I had the momentum, when I was on top, that I finished the sets off. I did that well today. Q. I know you've only been working with Amélie for a short time. How much of an impact has she been able to have already on what you're doing on court? ANDY MURRAY: Well, not loads, because you can't change things in a week. You can't make massive differences to the way someone plays. I think they can definitely help with your mindset and your concentration and things like that. I think it's easier to make a quick improvement on those things. But in terms of making changes to my game or improving things in my game, that will take longer. Q. Following on from what you said about the French Open, would you always prefer to win matches pretty quickly like that? For example, last year, the match against Verdasco, did that help you in the latter two matches? ANDY MURRAY: I think, you know, you're going to get tested during the tournament. Sometimes that happens in the first round, and sometimes it can happen in semifinals. It can happen at any moment in the tournament. You just have to be ready for it and expect it before every single match. I go into each match expecting to lose serve, expecting to go behind, you know, so your mind is ready and you don't get too down on yourself if that happens. Yeah, I mean, I'm happy to come through matches as quickly as possible, but you're going to get tested at some stage during the tournament. Obviously the further you go in the draw, the tougher the matches are going to get. Q. Last year I remember you training in between some of your matches with Kyle Edmund. I was wondering if that might be anything you were doing this year and how you assess his progress? ANDY MURRAY: I practiced with a lot of the British guys the year before. Oliver Golding. I practiced with him last year. I practiced with Kyle. Since I've been here, I have practiced with James Ward, Dan Smethurst, Dan Cox. I try to play with all the British guys when I can. In terms of Kyle's progress, you know, there's been parts of the year where we've played some good tennis. I practiced with him at a couple of the Davis Cup ties, and he was playing some good tennis. I obviously haven't seen him play loads of matches, but he's making that step up now from playing the futures to the challengers. It takes a bit of time to get used to that level because it's a higher level. In the futures tournaments, you'll be getting seeded and might be playing guys that are ranked at 900 in the world, whereas in the challengers, he's coming up against players ranked 100 in the world, 150 in the world. So it takes a bit of time. Just need to be patient with him, and hopefully he'll keep improving. Q. I appreciate what you say about how it might be early for Amélie to change things on the court. Can you talk about the chemistry so far. ANDY MURRAY: It's been good. I enjoy spending time with her on the court. I enjoy spending time with her off it. We chatted well about the matches. You know, we obviously discussed the things, you know, I felt like I needed to improve or add things to my game. We've chatted about that. We agreed on most things, so that's good. But, yeah, I think it's been working well so far. But, again, like I said at the beginning of the tournament, it's very difficult to make a change in the space of a week. It takes time in all sports. You know, if things go well, if we agree to keep working together, then I'll have some time after the tournament. Q. You showed a lot of variety out there today. Amélie had that in her game. Is that something you thought about when you hired her and something you want to work on in your game? ANDY MURRAY: Well, I mean, yeah, that's something that I've used throughout my career. That's how I've always tried to play the game. That's how I grew up playing. That's what my mum tried to teach me. Most of my coaches since then have viewed that as being a positive, so they haven't tried to take it away from me. Obviously that was something that Amélie did very well. You know, she serve and volleyed more than me and came forward a little bit more. I'm sure that's something that, you know, I'll try and work on with her. But the variety, yeah, it's an important part of my game. It's something I'm sure she'll encourage. Q. What are your thoughts and hopes about the next move for LeBron James after him opting out of his Miami Heat contract? ANDY MURRAY: Well, I hope he stays in Miami. But, yeah, I guess we'll obviously have to wait and see what his decision is. There's no guarantees he's going to leave just because he opted out of his contract. I guess we'll just have to wait a few weeks. But my season tickets last for another year or two, so ideally I'd rather he stayed. Q. Your thoughts on Aljaz Bedene becoming a British player? Would you welcome him in the Davis Cup team? ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, I don't really mind, to be honest. You know, the rules are there. I don't make the rules. Yeah, if he becomes a British citizen and is able to play, then I see no reason why he shouldn't be able to do it. Q. That was your most economical match in terms of time and games. When you're hammering somebody like that, is there a moment where you feel sympathy for him or is it relentless pressure to get on and off the court? ANDY MURRAY: To be honest, you just try to win the match. You know, I mean, I talk about it a lot. You put a lot of hours of practice and hard work, training, all the stuff you do in the gym for these tournaments. It hurts a lot of the time. When you are in a position to win a match like that, you have to try and do it as quickly as possible, because all of the players in this tournament are very, very good tennis players. If you give them, you know, a look in in a set or they see a way back in, they can start playing very well. You just try to keep it going. Q. You mentioned season tickets for the Miami Heat. Season tickets at Hibs? What do you make of Alan Stubbs' appointment as manager? Were you happy with that? ANDY MURRAY: It's going to be tough for them to come straight up as well. I think Rangers and Hearts are both there, as well. But, yeah, he was obviously a very good player himself. But obviously they're going to have to make some changes because last season wasn't great. Q. Is there much difference, Andy, playing on Centre to 1, how the two courts are playing? Do you accept the fact you have to have at least one outing off of Centre Court? ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, I don't care about that, to be honest. But I think since the roof came in on Centre, you feel more of a difference between the two courts. I think before when the roof wasn't there, they felt kind of similar. With the roof, that changes things a little bit. A bit more wind gets into Court1. It swirls a little bit more. Obviously when you toss the ball up and things, you know, with the roof there, the sun obviously doesn't affect you quite as bad on Centre Court. Yeah, it sounds a little bit different. It echos a little bit stiff on Centre Court when you strike the ball, where on Court1 it's not like that. So they play slightly differently. Q. Do you have any preference then if there's a difference now? ANDY MURRAY: Whichever court they put me on I play on. It's not my decision. You get on with it. Well, it shouldn't affect the way that you play in the matches. The one advantage about Centre Court is obviously with the roof. I don't know if the weather's meant to be bad or not, but if it is, you know you're going to get the match finished so that can help. Q. Regarding Junior Wimbledon, do you think back to those old days and how important they were to developing into the player you are now? ANDY MURRAY: Junior tennis is very important. Not necessarily just results. That's where you learn how to play matches. You learn how to construct points. You learn your technique. Some players find in the juniors whether they'll be able to be tennis players or not because they don't like the traveling, struggle with being homesick, whatever it is. It's also an important time to look after your body, too. If you do a lot of growing in those years, 14, 15, 16, as well, you need to try and avoid injuries as much as you can and get all your training right and stuff. Yeah, it's a very important part of a tennis player's career and development. Yeah, I do think about those days sometimes. Not so much, but occasionally. Q. As a football fan, what did you make of Suarez last night? ANDY MURRAY: I don't think you look at that as kind of a football fan. It's just wrong. I just think it looks really weird seeing a person bite someone else. I just don't see how that would come into your, yeah, thinking. Well, obviously he's not thinking clearly at the time. There was obviously something not quite right there. I think it's the third time he's done it now. It's not particularly nice to see. You can understand sometimes someone lashing out or whatever. But the biting's far too much. Q. What do you make of Bautista Agut? Have you practiced with him before? ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, actually I practiced in Valencia before the tournament in Madrid. I practiced with him. I practiced with him quite a lot. He's a very good player. He won the tournament last week on the grass in Holland. He doesn't play like a lot of the Spanish guys. He plays very flat. Not much topspin. The grass courts suit his game pretty well. He's obviously started well here. It will be a step up for sure. I think he's probably in the top 20 in the world now. He's improving all the time. Q. You played pretty much all your matches here over the last many years either on Centre Court or Court1. Usually in the first week there's two men's matches and one women's match. What do you think of the of the system of spreading it out? ANDY MURRAY: I think a lot of it is actually down to the best‑of‑five, as well. I think if you have three best‑of‑three matches on, or two best‑of‑three matches, the day's play could be done at 5:00. There's obviously play going on on the outside courts until 9:00 or so. Yeah, I don't really know what else to say about that. But I would say that's kind of the way it works, based on the length of the matches.  I think if they changed obviously the men to best‑of‑three, they could obviously play four matches on there, or the women best‑of‑five, then it would change. But I think right now that's kind of the way it has to be with the length of the matches 'cause you really can't fit four matches on there. It would be too tight. Q. Your mother's version this morning of the rescue, she found it quite harrowing. What did she say to you afterwards? ANDY MURRAY: Nothing because I didn't see her. She was like two cars behind when I got out of the car. So she came out and tried to help. She couldn't actually hold the dog still because it was pretty strong. It was a big dog. But, yeah, I didn't really see her. When I took the dog into the car park, she went to try and find the owner. Q. She said she saw you jump out of the car in the middle of traffic. ANDY MURRAY: Well, she was two cars behind me. We were at the traffic light. She obviously saw it. Yeah, I don't think I've seen her since. I don't think I've seen her since then, yeah. Q. Can you tell the whole story for those of us who haven't had it in your words? ANDY MURRAY: Well, basically I was driving from home. It was like two minutes from my house. Got to a traffic light. I parked. It was red, so I parked or stopped. Saw a dog running round like the corner. This is going to be hard for me to explain. But basically where I am at the traffic lights I would then go right. The dog was coming round from that way down the hill. I basically was like, What's going on? I didn't see an owner. Then I just jumped out the car. The dog started running towards the traffic that was coming. Yeah, you just get visions of a car coming round that corner and hitting the dog. So I just stopped in front of the traffic, got out, stopped the traffic, then tried to stop the dog. The dog had obviously been chasing something because it was so tired, so it sat down on the road. I just grabbed it by the collar and, yeah, threw it in the back of my car, then drove to the place where people where I live walk the dogs. I called the number that was on the tag. Yeah, I left a message. But as I was leaving the message, my mom had bumped into the owner and gave the dog to the owner. Then left. That was it basically. Q. Was the owner surprised that it was Andy Murray? ANDY MURRAY: (Smiling). FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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