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BRISBANE INTERNATIONAL

January 1, 2019

Andy Murray

Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

A. MURRAY/J. Duckworth

6-3, 6-4

THE MODERATOR: First question, please, for Andy.

Q. Andy, you spoke really well on the court just about trying to digest what that match was for you and what it meant, but now that you've had a little more time, how do you reflect on that first outing in a while?
ANDY MURRAY: Yeah. I think I did okay. I did feel like as the match went on, I did think it got better. At the start it wasn't particularly good tennis at the beginning, but I think one of the positive things for me was like kind of like instinctively, like I came up with some shots where I was kind of reading the game quite well, which is positive for a first match sometimes, and especially when I started playing again in the middle of last year, kind of wasn't seeing where the ball was going to go or anticipating what was going to happen that well. So that was a positive, and I think I hit the ball a bit better as the match went on.

Q. Were there a bit of nerves before this?
ANDY MURRAY: Yeah. I mean I like being nervous. Nerves for me are good. I know I was nervous today before the match. I think some of the matches when I was playing again last year, I didn't actually feel that nervous because I didn't really feel ready to compete or do well. You know, I was thinking more about my happen rather than how I was going to perform, worried because I feel a little bit more comfortable with where my hip is and I kind of -- I know what's normal for me now in terms of my hip discomfort and stuff. I'm able to handle that a bit better and concentrate more on actually just trying to play tennis. So I feel like I was a bit better prepared for today's match, and nerves are always good the slight discomfort.

Q. Is that what normal people call pain? Have you had to become accustomed to playing through discomfort and have you surprised yourself with how you've done that?
ANDY MURRAY: Yeah. Discomfort meaning pain. I mean all athletes have -- play through pain and niggles during their career. And I've obviously become accustomed to that over my career. The hip issue has been different than that. It's not just been discomfort or niggles. It's been a serious injury which has caused a lot of pain and more discomfort than just a niggle, and it's taken time to kind of adjust to that and understand that and kind of get my head around that.

I don't feel particularly like apprehensive and stuff about my hip as such today, just because I've trained on it more and been here playing practice sets with guys, and I've just had a lot longer to get used to it, whereas when I was playing again in kind of June, July time last year, my hip was pretty sore. I hadn't really practiced much. I hadn't played matches for a long time, and psychologically it was difficult. I was concentrating more on that than actually playing the match or my tactics. I was thinking a lot about my hip whilst I was playing; whereas, today I didn't really think about it at all, just concentrating on the match.

Q. Is the pain something that you would feel in every shot or rally or is it sharp pain periodically during games?
ANDY MURRAY: There are certain shots and certain positions on the court, certain movements that I make that are worse than others. Weirdly enough, walking is actually worse than some of the movements I have to make on the court, which is odd, and that's something that is frustrating for me at times, because I don't like walking around limping. Like when I see a video of myself doing that, that's been one of the things that's like, yeah, it's got me down quite a lot the last year or so because I feel like as an athlete I should be able to do that properly. And yeah, so that's something that's kind of taken a bit of time to get used to.

But like I said, on the court today, yeah, I was in a little bit of discomfort, but I don't feel like it hampered too many of my shots or my movements or anything and I was able to go out there and compete pretty well for the most part. So try to recover well tonight and then see how I come back tomorrow. But it was a good start.

Q. When you're training in the preseason that you've had, do you go for long sessions to try to warm your body up as much as possible or have you changed the way you've handled the approach into the season?
ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, that's another thing that has been different for me and it's been a challenge. Like I used to spend a lot more time kind of practicing and in the gym and stuff. So in the off season, like a three-hour session would kind of be normal, like on the court, I would do a few of them per week, and in the off season I was not really practicing more than an hour and a half at any one time. And before practices, yeah, spending more time getting warmed up before I get on the court and doing a lot of pool work and stuff and trying to work on my range of motion and things like that before I get out there. So I've had to change a lot of things in how I prepare and how I do things, which is difficult when you've been doing things a certain way for a long time and it's been successful, to make that change is difficult. But didn't really have a choice, so that helped and made it a bit easier.

Q. Have doctors or medical experts given you a time frame for your career or are they just leaving it up to you?
ANDY MURRAY: They have no idea, really. I mean I spoke to -- I've seen many doctors and specialists and have lots and lots of different opinions on my hip. And I don't believe they know. And that's, you know -- I don't know either. I'll just try to kind of take each kind of few-month blocks like at a time and see where it takes me and try to -- you know, I need to be smart with my training and my scheduling and things to try to -- because if I can keep my hip like as it is today, you know, I can play like that and enjoy the matches and what have you. If you put me kind of six months ago, I don't want to play like that. It's not fun. Training, practicing is not enjoyable at all when you're in lots of pain. So I need to try and find a way of managing it and reducing my schedule a little bit and reducing the amount of practice and hopefully I'll be able to kind of maintain the level that it's at for a while.

Q. This is a little left field, but it seems like you've had a good bit of fun with Instagram in the past few months. Where does that come from? It seems like you've sort of let yourself enjoy that piece of life that maybe you wouldn't have before.
ANDY MURRAY: Well, I mean, I used to use Twitter a lot, like quite a few years ago, and then -- I enjoyed it for a period, but then it's like, you know, you -- I'm very sarcastic, like with my team and people that know me, I have a very dry sense of humor, and sometimes that obviously doesn't come across whether I'm speaking to you guys or whether it's on social media or whatever. But, yeah, I mean I want to try and enjoy these kind of last little while of playing as much as I can and social media is a good way of doing that and showing your personality a little bit. Yeah, I have fun with that.

Q. The sarcasm comes through well on Instagram.
ANDY MURRAY: Does it? Okay. Good.

Q. It does.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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