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SHANGHAI ROLEX MASTERS

October 16, 2015

Andy Murray

SHANGHAI, CHINA

A. MURRAY/T. Berdych
6‑1, 6‑3

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. From where we were sitting, that looked very good. What was it like from where you were?
ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, I played very well. Obviously dictated pretty much all of the points. It's obviously not easy against someone like Tomas who hits the ball big, serves big.
But I got a good read on his serve and I served well myself. I was able to get into almost every one of his service games I think, made it very difficult especially after the beginning of the match, you know, to win games.
Yeah, it could have been more comfortable in the second set if I'd taken some chances there, but I played very well.

Q. You expressed a little concern from going from the day match to the evening match. Tomorrow night against Novak you start at the same time. Is that now in your favor?
ANDY MURRAY: I think it's obviously good to play under both of the conditions in case you have to play during the day or in the night. But the conditions in the evening are a little bit slower. There tends to be less wind in the evening, although it's not extremely windy here on the big courts. Even when there's a slight breeze, you feel it more. But it was completely still tonight. It was good conditions for tennis. Should make for some good points tomorrow, I would have thought.

Q. I know it's hard to rank these things. In terms of staying aggressive, hitting deep, painting the lines, where do you rank that in terms of your matches this year?
ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, I mean, it's difficult because sometimes you can play extremely well, and you miss shots by a couple of inches, people say you played a bad match. That's the thing with tennis. I mean, I hit the lines a lot today. I did go for my shots. I stayed aggressive throughout the whole match, which was very positive.
But on another day, some of those shots maybe go out by an inch or two inches. The match is a little bit tighter. I would say in terms of how I struck the ball, how aggressive I was, it was one of my better performances of the year, for sure.

Q. Could you tell us the reason you're playing such an aggressive tournament?
ANDY MURRAY: I think just learning from matches throughout the year. When I had my best results, you know, is when I played that way. The match I played in New York against Kevin Anderson, I was very disappointed with that match. I wanted to learn as much as I could from it.
I spoke to my team a lot about that. I don't watch loads of my own matches, but I watched quite a bit of that one. I was very disappointed with what I saw.
So, yeah, I wanted to learn from that. I did, I think, quite quickly. In the Davis Cup I played extremely aggressive, was dictating a lot of the points there. I was close to the baseline. The same again throughout most of this tournament, so that's positive.
But you can't do it every match. Sometimes you're not hitting the ball well enough or your opponent is playing too well. But if I'm serving well and getting a good hit on the return, I'm able to do it.

Q. Looking ahead to playing Novak. When you beat him in Canada, that ended a round of seven or eight defeats. At that point had it been getting in your head at all or did you always feel that you would beat him at some stage?
ANDY MURRAY: No, because after I had surgery, I mean, I spoke a lot about it at the time, I wasn't able to compete with the best players at that level for a good eight, nine months after I had the surgery. It takes a long time to come back from something like that. It's extremely difficult.
The matches that year, I didn't really pay too much attention to. It was more the ones I played this year. In all of them I felt like I had chances, you know, played some good tennis.
The Miami match, you know, I played I thought very well. The match in Australia obviously, you know, I was up a break in the third set there. It was just a couple of the final sets that were obviously disappointing for me. But it wasn't like I was going out there and getting blown off the court. I was playing some good tennis and hanging with him. I managed to do that throughout the whole match when we played in Montréal. Hopefully I can play another good one tomorrow.

Q. The semifinal will be against Novak. You beat him in Canada this year. Do you think you have a chance to beat him again? How much confidence do you have?
ANDY MURRAY: I mean, I think I have a chance. I'm aware it's going to be an extremely difficult match. He's played very, very well for the whole year. For the last two weeks, he played very well in Beijing, and some good matches here, too.
But, yeah, it's going to be a tough match. I played very well today, and I feel fresh. It was important that I got a quick match tonight 'cause it's late. It takes a long time to get back to the hotel and stuff.
I'll get well recovered, get a nice, long sleep and play a good match tomorrow, but it's going to be a tough match for sure.

Q. Great consistency in Masters this year. Every one a semifinal except Rome where you were forced to pull out. That must give you a lot of satisfaction.
ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, that was something that I wanted to try and address this year a bit. I spoke about it. My consistency, even in previous years, taking last year away from it, I had too many tournaments and too many performances that I feel like I could have done a little bit better. I was putting you could say too much emphasis on the slams, but I had great results in the slams, managed to win a couple, whereas this year I didn't.
My results in Masters Series have been very good. If you want to get into the top few players in the world, if you want to get to No.1, you do need to have the consistency in these events, as well, and throughout the whole season. Novak I think has only lost five or six matches the whole year. You can't get to No.1 in the world if you don't do it throughout the whole year. So that was something I tried to address. I think I've done that well this year.
But obviously slams are the biggest events. Didn't quite manage to get one of them this year.

Q. Novak has won 15 straight matches, 18 straight sets. How much have you seen him play recently and what do you make of that ridiculous level?
ANDY MURRAY: I saw his match against Bolelli in Beijing. I saw quite a lot of his match today. I didn't get to see any of his match with Rafa last week.
But he played extremely well in Beijing. I think every year he's been there, he's played great tennis. The conditions there are maybe the best conditions for him throughout the year. He obviously loves it there and plays great tennis there.
Here, you know, had obviously a couple of comfortable matches first two rounds. I thought Tomic played very well in the first set, just wasn't able to sustain that level in the second. But he definitely pushed him there.
He's played fantastic the whole year. I mean, his record shows that. Regardless of whether he won however many sets in a row, however many matches, his level the whole year has been great. It's always going to be a tough match.

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