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WIMBLEDONJuly 8, 2015Andy MurrayLONDON, ENGLAND A. MURRAY/V. Pospisil THE MODERATOR: Questions, please. Q. You really stepped up a level that Pospisil didn't seem to be able to match. Were you happy you got to those points? ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, I needed to because he, you know, at times was serving really well, made it very difficult for me. Then, yeah, I just managed to, at a few key moments, come up with some good shots. I think it was maybe only the last game he had breakpoint on my serve. But, yeah, the rest of the time he didn't have loads of opportunities there. But, you know, third set was tricky, as well, because I had a bunch of breakpoints. When you don't take them, obviously you start to think about that a little bit. But overall it was a good match. Q. Rory McIlroy posted on social media a picture as he was watching your match, and he also said he's not going to be playing in the Open Championship. What are your thoughts about the Open and Jordan Spieth? ANDY MURRAY: Jordan Spieth has had an incredible year so far. The thing I'd say that is most impressive about him is how composed he is in general. You hear him speak, for such a young guy, he seems extremely composed. I'd imagine he's got a decent shot at the Open. I read that maybe he wasn't preparing the right way. He was, I think, playing a tournament in the States this week rather than coming over early to prepare for the Open. Yeah, it was a huge shame for Rory. But, you know, accidents happen. Hopefully he'll be back soon. Q. And Jordan approaching the possibility of a Grand Slam the way Serena is, what do you make of that? ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, I mean, it's pretty incredible. I think it's obviously a very hard thing to do I guess in either of the sports. Golf may be slightly harder. Seems like more people can win there. If you have one or two horrendous holes, you're pretty much out of it, whereas in tennis you can play a terrible set and still come back. But, yeah, they're obviously extremely difficult to do it in both. It would be great to see. Q. I know you're out there and competing and trying to win a match. Vasek has a lot of variety in his game. Would you say he's a fun guy to play against, what he showed out on the court? ANDY MURRAY: Uhm, yeah, I mean, I guess when you're out there, I'm not sort of thinking whether it's fun to play against him or not. There's guys I like watching. You know, he serves well. He comes to the net. He uses a slice backhand. He's a very good athlete. He's quick around the court. You know, he always seems to have, you know, quite entertaining matches. Yeah, he's a tricky guy to play against. Q. Just looking ahead to the semifinal. You've often said that home advantage is a big thing for you. Do you think this is a match where it won't necessarily be such a factor, given the huge support that Federer always gets in this country? ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, I don't know. I think, you know, I hope I get good support on Friday. It's been the case throughout the whole event and every year that I played here. Roger's obviously extremely popular everywhere he goes. So, yeah, it might not be, you know, as partisan a crowd or atmosphere as some matches that I play here. But it will still be an excellent atmosphere, so I'll still get, you know, a boost from the crowd, I'm sure. Q. Obviously a bit off and on today with the rain. Was the shoulder thing at all a factor given you would have been cooling down a bit during the breaks. ANDY MURRAY: I felt like I did okay. My shoulder's felt better the last two, three days really. Been hitting a bunch of serves in practice still. Would like to get a little bit more pace behind the first serve. But, yeah, hopefully that comes the next couple of days. You know, I didn't feel like the breaks affected me too much. Actually played pretty well under the roof for a change, which is nice. Q. Roger is competing at the top at 33. How do you think he's been able to prolong his career and how much longer do you think he can keep competing at the top level? ANDY MURRAY: I have no idea how long he can keep competing at the top level. No one knows. It could be three, four years at the rate he's going just now. But, you know, that depends on a lot of things. If he wants to continue doing that or not. But, yeah, the reasons why he's still at the top is he has a pretty efficient game style. He's quite loose on the court. But he's also played loads of matches over his career. I mean, he's played so many tennis matches, as well. So it's very impressive that he's managed to stay at the top of the game for so long, considering how long he's been at the top of the game for and how many matches he's played. It's significantly more than a lot of the guys that have been at the top of the game for a long time. I mean, he's won over a thousand matches and played over 1, 200 matches. That's a lot of tennis. Q. The last time you played Roger was a very one‑sided match. What did you take out of that and how have you changed since then? ANDY MURRAY: Well, I was actually quite calm after that match. I've spoken about it a little bit, you know, this year at different stages. But, you know, a lot of people in my team, people around me, were very, very worried by that match. I felt quite calm about it. It was obviously embarrassing, you know, the scoreline. But I kind of looked at the few weeks before then, the matches also that I played at the O2, the matches I played against Novak over that period as well, kind of assessed it and said, Where am I going wrong against the top guys and what is it that I need to do to get back to that level competing with them? I dealt with it that way and tried to be rational about it. Came back and played some extremely good tennis at the beginning of the year in Australia. So it was a tough loss, for sure. But I tried to deal with it in the right way. Q. The Olympic final is almost three years ago now. Probably that was your most emphatic win over Roger, especially on the Centre Court. Has your tennis and his tennis changed so much that that no longer has a pertinence? ANDY MURRAY: I think in individual sports, I mean, previous matches and stuff kind of go out the window on the day. It's all about, you know, who performs on that day. Obviously, you know, you can learn things from those matches, maybe some tactical things that worked well and reasons for why you got the correct outcome or the outcome that you wanted. But, you know, I could try and do the same thing as I did at the Olympics. Roger plays a completely different game style. I mean, on Friday he could play a different game style, then you have to change and adapt, as well. I feel like I'm playing better tennis than I was then, but I don't think those matches that we played here in the past will have too much bearing on the outcome on Friday. Q. You mentioned in the TV interview you had a chance meeting with him at practice this morning. Can you elaborate any further? ANDY MURRAY: No, I mean, we're just like two meters from each other in the locker room every single day. We walked out onto the practice courts, the courts where we were warming up next to each other today. We weren't chatting about anything. It was just, Hey, how you doing? Nothing interesting. Q. I wondered if you had a chance this week to meet the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and whether you've been tempted to throw your wristband their direction? ANDY MURRAY: I think I'll stick to throwing it into the crowd for the rest of the event (smiling). Yeah, I saw them briefly after the match, yeah, had a little chat. Q. Roger hasn't lost a single semifinal here. Even though times have changed over the years, how much does the fact that you have beaten him in a big match on Centre Court help you to try to overcome that? ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, obviously, you know, it can help. Like I say, I don't know how much bearing it will have on the outcome on Friday. But I think when you've had positive experiences against an opponent, you know, that can help for sure. But, yeah, I go into the match on Friday having played some good tennis this week. You know, this year has been fairly consistent. So hopefully I can put in a solid performance on Friday and see what happens. Q. What did you feel about the time violation rule? Vasek was affected by that at the end of the second and third set. ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, I mean, getting a time violation I don't think affects you too much. But when you get the second one, it obviously can be a bit of an issue because you lose your serve. I have no idea how long he was taking between the points. I'm sure Vasek also has no idea how long he was taking between the points because we can't tell because there's no way of us knowing. It's down to the umpire to make that call. When it goes against you, it can be frustrating. Q. How pleased were you with your performance under the roof? The forecast for Sunday is a bit of rain. Is it good to get some practice under the roof? ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, I mean, I haven't always played that well under the roof in the past. But I did feel like I played some good stuff when the roof closed. It was quite tricky conditions when we went out there. At the beginning, it was pretty windy. It doesn't normally swirl around in there. But the wind was swirling around a bit, so it was making it tough. Then, yeah, when the roof closed, it actually made it a little bit easier today. It was very humid in there. Both of us were sweating a lot when the roof closed. It does change the conditions a lot. But I felt like I played quite well under it today. Q. Did you get a chance to speak to David Beckham or Anthony Joshua or any other stars here? ANDY MURRAY: I spoke to an Anthony Joshua just before I came in. I met him a couple of times. He's a nice guy. Scary guy, but he's a nice guy (smiling). Q. Summer of 2012, the Olympics was a long time ago, it was kind of a turning point in your career, in a way a turning point for Roger. Last slam he won. Can you talk about what that summer meant to you. ANDY MURRAY: Well, you know, winning at the Olympics is still one of the best couple of weeks in my career. It's something I'll remember forever. It was special for a number of reasons, you know, mainly because it's something I will never get the opportunity to play at a home Olympics again. After what had happened in the Wimbledon final, you know, a few weeks before, then to play against the same opponent in the final of the Olympics a few weeks later and win, it was, yeah, like you said, a big turning point in my career, for sure. Q. You were talking at Queen's about looking at videos of your greatest hits, your best matches on grass. Have you reviewed that and seen that Olympic one again in the course of the last couple of weeks? Would you also look at the 2012 final as well to see what you didn't do so well for your match on Friday? ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, I've watched bits. I haven't watched the whole of each of those matches, but I've watched bits of both over the last few weeks. I played well in the 2012 Wimbledon final. You know, Roger played extremely well under the roof. The last couple sets he played very, very well. I had opportunities there, too. I was up a set and had a couple of breakpoints at 3‑2 in the second, you know, to increase my lead a little bit more. The two matches where I played well in both of them, had chances in the Wimbledon final for sure. Yeah, I'll look back at them. It's also important, though, to look at matches from the current event because, you know, things change in a couple of years. Q. You said you spoke briefly with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. What were you speaking with them about? ANDY MURRAY: A private conversation. But we didn't get to chat for too long. There's also a lot of people there as well. Yeah, a little bit about the match, and that was it. Q. Do you think Djokovic should apologize to the ball girl he shouted at? ANDY MURRAY: I haven't seen that. I don't know. What happened? I don't know. Q. He shouted at a ball girl. He said, Towel, shouted at her. She was a bit startled. ANDY MURRAY: I guess that's really up to him. I haven't seen anything about that. Tough one to comment on. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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