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THE CHAMPIONSHIPS

June 29, 2019

Andy Murray

Wimbledon, London, England

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. I wonder how winning Queen's has shifted your expectations coming into Wimbledon now? Maybe gives you the belief you can go a bit further in this competition, men's, maybe mixed?
ANDY MURRAY: For me it hasn't changed really. I think that's probably one of the things that I will try to make sure it doesn't change over the next, you know, few years. I think a lot of that stuff kind of comes out from other people. I'm just happy to be playing tennis again really.

I would like to do well when I get on the court. I play to win. I'm really competitive. But I'm not sort of saying to myself, like -- I didn't know four or five weeks ago if I'd even be playing over the grass. Shouldn't be expecting too much.

But once I step on the court, I'll be out there trying to win every match I play.

Q. Serena was just saying if her knee holds up, she wouldn't mind playing mixed doubles maybe. Have you made a decision yet as to whether you're going to play? Any news who you might play with, if you are?
ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, I mean, I do want to play. All the conversations I've had with my team and stuff, I do want to play. We've had a number of conversations with a few players. Yeah, the plan's definitely to play.

Conditions look like it's supposed to be good for the fortnight, which is a positive thing. That was really, I sort of, I want to say got spooked a little bit by speaking to some of the doubles guys, asking them why they don't play mixed. It was for the reason that they had some years where they've been backed up. Sometimes the mixed is not the priority to get on the court. They get backed up a lot. It's not easy.

Obviously I haven't played lots of tennis. That was really the reason for kind of not being certain on it. But with the weather looking like it's going to be pretty good, I'm up for it, yeah.

Q. The doubles have traditionally played second fiddle in some respects to the singles. Are you hoping your involvement will raise the profile of the doubles in the Championships?
ANDY MURRAY: I think one of the things, I guess, beforehand you had a lot more of the top singles playing that were playing the doubles. Like when McEnroe was playing, around that time. A lot of the top doubles teams, they were pretty well-known, like the Woodies and stuff. I grew up kind of watching quite a bit of doubles myself, too.

Yeah, I think when the top singles players are involved in the doubles, it does draw a little bit more attention to it. That's something that I think will be a positive thing for tennis, if more guys were playing doubles.

But here it's difficult because of the format, the best-of-five sets. For me, even that I'm playing doubles here, it's even a consideration if I'm going to play mixed, as well. I would never expect a top singles player to enter the doubles here because playing potentially 10 sets in one day is just too much.

That's something that maybe would be worth looking at, to give more value to the doubles event, to get more of the top singles players playing, is to reduce the length of the matches a bit.

Q. You could be playing Jamie as early as the third round. When the pair of you heard the draw, what was your reaction?
ANDY MURRAY: I got told by, I can't remember who it was, a couple of the journalists yesterday after my practice.

I mean, even if were separated on opposite ends of the draw, people would be talking about us playing in the final.

We have to win matches first. I think if we get through our first round, we're due to face the 6 seeds the second round. I mean, if we play each other, it would be difficult in some respects. You're competing against your brother, biggest tennis event in the world.

At the same time I'd rather be on the same side of the net with him. But it's cool if we did get the opportunity, that we'd be doing it on the biggest stage in our sport, as well, which would be nice.

We'll see if we get there.

Q. Just on Serena. Is she somebody that you talked to or would you talk to her as a potential partner?
ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, I mean, look, I've spoken to a number of players about playing. Obviously the one thing with the players that are in the singles is that they may -- that's their priority. I understand that. I appreciate that.

If I'm going to play mixed, which is the plan, you obviously want to be playing with someone who's going to be there for the whole event, and they're in it to try to win matches and win the event.

I appreciate with singles players that's not always going to be the case. Yeah, I mean, obviously she's arguably the best player ever. It would be a pretty solid partner (smiling).

Q. On Ash Barty, got to No. 1 in the WTA rankings. What made her so attractive to you as a partner? What do you think about her getting to No. 1 after her journey?
ANDY MURRAY: Obviously very interesting story. I think the kind of journey she's been on the last few years, I mean, I saw her playing the first time ages ago. She's just a natural, like, athlete. Great hand skills, moves well, reads the game extremely well. She's got all the attributes obviously to be a good doubles player. Also she's brilliant at singles, too, obviously. Results this year have been excellent.

Yeah, she'll continue to get better. I also think it just shows that, like, not everyone is the same. Everyone has different paths. Everyone finds their way at different times, goes through different phases in their career.

Obviously it's my understanding, she stopped playing, she wasn't necessarily enjoying it much. To see her around the courts and stuff now, it just seems like she's loving it. Maybe if she hadn't taken that break and that time away, it wouldn't necessarily be right for her. She made a decision that's right for her and her happiness. I think ultimately for everybody that's the most important thing.

It's also nice to see she's getting to achieve her potential in tennis. Hopefully she keeps going.

Q. What has it been like doing the doubles-specific drills, preparation, that you probably haven't done much of in your career?
ANDY MURRAY: I like doing all the doubles drilling. The sets and stuff, I don't enjoy that side of things as much. You sometimes feel like you're not hitting lots of balls. You can be on the courts sometimes for an hour and a half, not feel like you've done a whole lot, whereas when you're doing the actual drills, you get a really intense workout. It's quite different movements to what we make in tennis.

You have to be really explosive over a couple of steps to make sure you get up to the net quick enough. The reactions are really quick and sharp. I find some of the sessions pretty tiring. The points play not so much, like I said.

It's been good. It's been fun for me. Obviously different to what I've been used to. Yeah, I've liked it. It's been good fun.

Q. When was the last time you played your brother in serious competition and what was the outcome?
ANDY MURRAY: We played in Canada, I can't remember how many years ago, but me and Leander Paes played Jamie and John Peers in Canada maybe four, five years ago.

Q. 2015.
ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, it was around then. Jamie and John won. I think it was like 4-6, something like that. A pretty decent match.

Before then, I can't remember really. Before that, it would have been a pretty long time. Normally, when I have played doubles, most of the time it's kind of been with him recently.

Q. You mentioned about reducing the number of sets to make the singles players play the doubles. There's been one of the grievances for the doubles specialists. Now that you play doubles, how do you look at the issue?
ANDY MURRAY: What's been a grievance?

Q. Reduced sets, less prize money.
ANDY MURRAY: From speaking to the doubles guys over the years, I don't think the doubles guys love the no-ad scoring, the 10-point tiebreaks. I think that scoring system allows for more of the singles guys to play at the other events on the tour.

But I think, like, best-of-three sets with the normal scoring, my understanding from speaking to a lot of the doubles guys is that they like that, yeah. I think that might be something worth trying. That's the case at the other slams.

I haven't researched and kind of looked at it to see if more singles players are playing at the Australian Open, US Open and French Open. My gut feeling is they would be. Yeah, I think it's maybe something worth looking at. I don't know, if the event needs or wants more of the singles guys to play, that would be one way of doing it.

Q. (Question on Jamie, how much do you credit him in terms of measuring yourself against a player.)
ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, I think just growing up with a brother literally 15 months apart, we did all sports together, all games together from when we were kids.

I guess tennis-wise, in central Scotland, there's not lots of sort of top tennis players when we were growing up. So having Jamie to play against and compete against up until we were kind of 14, 15, was obviously a big help.

But I just think the biggest thing for us as kind of athletes is that we didn't just play tennis. We did everything together, whether that was golf, gymnastics, squash, table tennis, swimming. We did all sports with each other at a young age and enjoyed doing it.

That was probably the biggest thing for both of us growing up. It's allowed us to be -- like, there's a lot of kind of transferrable skills from sport to sport. We can play golf together, play a reasonable level of golf, do stuff like that, which is good.

Our parents obviously allowing us to spend most of our kind of time away from school doing that, running around afterwards, letting us play sports.

Q. What is Pierre-Hugues like as a player? In the days off, will you watch the tennis or knock yourself away while the action is happening?
ANDY MURRAY: I haven't really hardly watched any tennis in the last 12 months really. I mean, since the operation I had in January, I mean, I literally didn't watch anything hardly at all.

I mean, when you're around the event and stuff, there's matches on the TV, I wouldn't sit from the first point of a match and watch a best-of-five set match because it can be four hours of the day. I'm here to do stuff. I want to be with my family and things.

I'll watch bits and pieces of it.

With Pierre, he's very laid back, like, relaxed guy. Good person. Always, yeah, very polite. He's always been really, really friendly, not just this week but before. He plays a game that I would say is fairly suited to quick courts. Not that the courts here are not particularly fast just now. Hopefully they'll speed up a bit as the event goes on. He plays serve-volley tennis, returns well. He's a good athlete.

Yeah, hopefully we can have a good run together.

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