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THE CHAMPIONSHIPSJuly 9, 2019Andy MurraySerena WilliamsWimbledon, London, England MURRAY-WILLIAMS/Martin-Atawo 7-5, 6-3 THE MODERATOR: Questions, please. Q. The Harper's Bazaar article you authored came out today. There were interesting revelations in it. A lot of people noticed you had said you had gone to see a therapist after dealing with the US Open incident. Can you talk about that process, what it did for you, how has it affected you going forward. SERENA WILLIAMS: It wasn't very easy. I've had a lot of things happen to me at that particular tournament in general. It was just important to always try to better yourself in any way that you can. Q. Andy, on TV you said once Wimbledon finishes, hopefully on Sunday, you're going to practice a bit more singles. Does that mean you made your decision to go to the US Open or the U.S. swing as a singles player? ANDY MURRAY: I think it's pretty unlikely just in terms of timing. I spoke to my team a bit about that yesterday. Just a lot of stuff I need to get done physically, get myself stronger. The amount of work I need to do on the court to get ready for singles, the amount of work I need to put in off the court to get myself strong enough to play best-of-five sets, it's still quite a ways away unfortunately. I would love to play. I need to look, like, pretty long-term with this. I don't want to be having to go through another big operation in a few years' time. I want to make sure the operation I've had lasts for as long as possible. To give it the best chance, I need to make sure that, I'm physically, you know, really strong before I get back on the singles court. Q. Serena, on the article, why did you feel that now was a good time to tell your side of the story? Seems curious timing, the second week of Wimbledon. There's an Instagram post that went out during your match from your account. Why now? SERENA WILLIAMS: That was actually planned months ago. It wasn't like I was going to plan the release of it. I wasn't quite sure when the actual magazine was going to come out. It was all coincidental. Yeah, I didn't write that last night or anything. Obviously someone on my social team put it out during the match. Q. Your next opponent, Barbora Strycova, what do you make of her as an opponent? Semifinal first time at 33. Interesting arc. What challenge does she pose you? SERENA WILLIAMS: She's, again, a really good grass court player. Like today I played an unbelievable grass court player. So is Barbora. She's good on the grass. She knows what to do. She has a good all-around game. She's incredibly tricky. It's definitely not easy. But it's something I'm definitely geared up for. Just to be out here, just go out there and do, like, the best that I can. Q. Andy, being back here and being alongside a winner in her own right, is that giving you a hunger to win again? Could this partnership continue, as well, at other events? ANDY MURRAY: I don't know about that (smiling). I mean, obviously it's possible, but it's been fun being on the court with Serena so far. We've played some good stuff. We spoke a lot about that after the first round, as well. But, look, when I get on the court and stuff, I'm competitive, like I want to do well, I want to play well, obviously try to win. I don't feel like that's changed. I didn't feel like I lost that. When I came back to play at Queen's, that was still there. Still enjoyed the competitive side of things. I'm just dealing with, I don't know, like winning and losing slightly differently than maybe I used to. Probably got a slightly different perspective on things because of how the last few years have gone. Q. Expand on that a little bit. How different? ANDY MURRAY: Well, when I got my hip injury, I was ranked No. 1 in the world. I went from, yeah, playing at the highest level of the sport to really struggling to do kind of day-to-day things. First of all, playing tennis was not fun any more, because it was painful every time I played. The training and stuff wasn't great. Then I wasn't enjoying just, you know, going out for a walk, doing other kind of social things as well. Going out for dinner and things like that, it was just uncomfortable. Now that I'm pain-free again, I realize that's actually the most important thing, is to be healthy, enjoying a kind of normal life, for someone that's 32 - I think I am now 32 years old (smiling). I'm just doing the things I've always loved doing again, which I didn't have the opportunity to do much the last couple of years. Q. Andy, how is the mixed doubles helping mentally and physically your ambitions to get back to singles? ANDY MURRAY: I think playing matches is always good. One of the things that probably showed a bit in the first two matches is, like, breakpoints and stuff, maybe haven't played them as well as I would have liked so far. That's something you get better with playing more matches, playing more of those points. I'll continue to improve on that. Then, yeah, just physically, it's just being on a match court is different. Doesn't matter how much practicing and training you do. Like, I prepared well for kind of the grass season. I played a decent amount of tennis, trained hard. Once you start playing matches again, things tend to hurt a little bit at the beginning. You build up that robustness by competing, playing matches kind of week after week, day after day. That's hopefully what I'll be able to do in these next few months once I get back on the match court, hopefully stay there, not have to take too many breaks. Q. Andy, you said it's unlikely to be the US Open. You said there's a long way to do a lot of work. Do you feel it's maybe unlikely to be this year, you might be targeting perhaps Australia for the singles? ANDY MURRAY: I don't know exactly. I said this at the beginning of the grass season: I don't want to put a timeframe on it. You guys want a timeframe. I can't give you an exact timeframe because I don't know how long it's going to take for me to physically get to that level. I know some people might like it to have taken five months or six months, but it's going to take more time than that, unfortunately. Whether that's nine months or 12 months or 18 months, I don't know. I'll do my best to make it as soon as I can. I can't give an exact timeframe on this. It's tough. Q. I'd like to now how much fun you have playing together. Are you able to also sometimes chat, I don't say jokes? ANDY MURRAY: There were a few jokes out there tonight. We can't say them in here, unfortunately (smiling). Q. Serena, is Andy always talking with a deep voice when he talks to you? Or sometimes he says, C'mon, something funny that makes you laugh? ANDY MURRAY: Serena was the one making me laugh today out there. I think today felt a bit more relaxed probably than the first match because we don't know each other extremely well. I think there's a lot of talk about us playing, then once we got on the court, we wanted to do well. I think today, chatted a bit more, probably a bit more relaxed than the first round, I'd say. Q. Haven't really seen a crowd that enjoy a match that much. I'm curious at a time when tennis is innovating, do you think there's more time for male and female stars to play together because it seems like people like to see it? SERENA WILLIAMS: It's hard to say. It's so hard because of the schedule. The players are just trying to do so well in the singles. It just kind of worked out for me in particular because I was literally looking for some match play. So was Andy. It just kind of worked out. I think it's a great thing for the fans and for sport. But at the end of the day so many of us are obviously focused on doing the best that we can in singles. Q. How did it feel to hit so many return winners against Martin? SERENA WILLIAMS: I mean, do not expect that to ever happen again. I'm convinced that was once in a lifetime. I just never hit returns like that in my life. Q. Andy, what you were saying about the singles, do you plan to try to play singles in the American swing, maybe the smaller tournaments, best-of-three sets? Is that your intention? ANDY MURRAY: No. Right now it's not, no. Q. Stay with doubles or... ANDY MURRAY: I don't know. I want to try to prepare to try and get ready for singles. If I'm able to train the way that I need to off the court and still maintain kind of, I guess, my performance on it in doubles, I would consider that. But, you know, also, yeah, I don't know if I want to go over to the States to play doubles for four or five weeks. I'm not sure. I'm not sure yet. I'll decide on that probably when the tournament's done and sit down with my team. But having felt how I felt these last few weeks, I'm positive about the future, so therefore I'm going to train properly to try and give singles a go. But that will take time. Q. A break then from competition so you can train? ANDY MURRAY: I don't know. I might take a break. I might train and play doubles. I might just train for singles. I really don't know. I think what I've done this grass court season has been a positive thing and has been the right decision kind of for my hip to see kind of where I'm at. I can't say exactly just now. Q. This competition has been so much fun for the British public. If you win, do you think Serena should be nominated for honorary Dame-hood? ANDY MURRAY: Absolutely (smiling). SERENA WILLIAMS: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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