QATAR EXXONMOBIL OPEN

February 21, 2024

Andy Murray

Press Conference

J. MENSIK/A. Murray

7-6, 6-7, 7-6

THE MODERATOR: Questions.

Q. Andy, a tough one. You had many chances, especially the end of the first set. What do you think you were maybe missing tonight? How is your ankle after the fall?

ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, ankle feels okay. I just actually, yeah, got a little bit light-headed, like, the very first point when we started running in the point and I lost balance. It wasn't a bad roll, but I don't know if you've ever got that sense, if you do quite strenuous exercise and stop for a period and try to go again.

Yeah, I just felt a little bit dizzy the very first point. And obviously when I ran up to that ball I lost my footing a bit. But ankle is fine.

Yeah, I guess, yeah, obviously the end of the first set, I mean, the volley I missed was, yeah, a shocker. Then, you know, obviously I did well to recover from that to win the second set, because, you know, not easy to finish a set that way.

Then the third set, well, I mean, he obviously had the opportunity to finish it, and, you know, I fought back and obviously disappointed not to get the tiebreak.

But, I mean, it was a sort of fairly balanced match, and, you know, I probably, had I got through the first set, probably, I don't know, had just a little bit obviously more momentum. Yeah, didn't get it.

Q. He's 18. How good is he, do you think?

ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, he's obviously very good. You know, I think the advantage that he has just now is that physically he's obviously a big guy and very strong. That can obviously help a bit when you come on, like, on the pro tour.

You know, when you're playing against men, you know, some players come on the tour and are physically a little bit, you know, smaller and still have some developing to do.

I'm sure physically he will still get stronger, but he's obviously a big guy. He hits the ball hard. Serves big.

Yeah, he moves pretty well for a big guy. Yeah, he obviously has, you know, a lot of potential. Without knowing the person, it's impossible to say how good he can be, but he's shown already in the few tournaments he's played on the tour that -- you know, he pushed Hurkacz really tough at the Australian Open. Qualified and was winning matches at the US Open. Has obviously had a couple good wins here. Yeah, he's got a bright future.

Q. Tough luck, Andy. I was wondering, how do you prepare mind-wise comparing players that you do not know, like Mensik, and players who are very well-established? Is there a difference or it is the same process?

ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, I mean, it is a little bit trickier, you know, playing against players you don't know as well, because obviously as the match goes on, you start to recognize their game more and see their patterns a bit better.

You know, whereas like at the very beginning of the match, some of the stuff they can do can obviously surprise you a little bit. I knew he was going to serve big. You know, he was taking his forehand down the line a lot more than what I expected in comparison to most players, I would say. So that was a bit of a surprise.

But yeah, it's not easy. You know, some of the guys on the tour, the older players, you would have played six, seven times, sometimes more than that, and just a bit easier to know what to expect when you go on the court.

But that's probably the one disadvantage with being sort of an older player is that a lot of -- I know when I started on the tour what it was like playing against guys I had been watching on the TV and stuff, and I remember practicing with a few of the guys like Tim Henman and Carlos Moya and Federico Coria when I first started coming on the tour, and they were some of my favorite players to watch. So when I played them the first few times, it was a little bit easier for me to see what they were going to do, because I had been watching them a lot.

Yeah, a slight disadvantage to being old.

Q. I take the chance to ask to a double Wimbledon champion if you have the chance to watch Jannik Sinner's match lately and if there is something that impress you technically or mentally? And if you see in him the stuff of a grass player? Because he got to semifinals last year in Wimbledon. Maybe this year I think he's one of the top contenders, but I'm interested in your opinion.

ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, I mean, I think with the way he hits the ball, I think on all of the surfaces he will, you know, will have good results.

I would say the hard courts just now are probably his best surface. I think he moves extremely well on the hard courts. Moving on the grass courts is, you know, it's a little bit different, but, I mean, in terms of the way, like, he serves and hits the ball, yeah, there is no reason why he can't do very well on the grass.

Yeah, just sometimes some players take more time to adjust to the movement on that surface because it is so unique. For whatever reason, that was a surface that I moved best or most naturally on, but yeah, I mean, I think he has the chance to, you know, do very well.

I watched quite a lot of the final in Australia. Yeah, he did unbelievably well to come back and win that match from the position that he was in. It was obviously a great effort.

You know, Medvedev potentially at the very end was a little bit fatigued. He'd played a lot of tennis that week, those two weeks. But yeah, Jannik was, yeah, going for his shots, very consistent mentally, and yeah, did a great job to get through. After winning the first one, I'm sure he'll go on to win more.

Q. Is there anything positive game-wise you feel you're going to still be able to gain from this week?

ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, I mean, I think I probably, in the matches that I played this year, like, a match against Grigor in Brisbane, you know, sort of felt like I kind of played it the right way. I really didn't feel like I played a good match at the Australian Open.

Then, yeah, I think the last two days, like, there was some positive stuff. Like I was hitting the ball a bit harder, I was trying to come forward to the net, and, you know, wasn't, like, the one getting pushed around all of the time.

So yeah, that was positive. But yeah, ultimately, yeah, today, disappointing to lose that one.

Q. Alcaraz got injured last night. I was wondering if there is a number for what you would give for a younger person, for a younger player coming on the tour, the number of tournaments. Are they playing a lot, or does it vary from player to player? How do you think that works?

ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, I mean, I think that sometimes in tennis it's looked at a little bit like the wrong way, like, in terms of how many tournaments should someone play. Because it's really dependent on how many matches you play, really.

You know, if you play four tournaments and you lose in the first round of every one, there is a very different response on the body to making the semifinals and finals two weeks in a row. You know, playing 9 matches across 12, 13 days is physically very demanding.

You know, something that I probably, yeah, wish at times, certainly later in my career, that, you know, like, if you had done really well in a tournament or won, like, a big event, to not necessarily play the next week, want to enjoy the win more, because sometimes we finish on a Sunday night and we arrive to the following tournament on a Monday and you're straight back into competing, and maybe, you know, at the later stage of your career it's not that necessary.

But, you know, I think for the young players it has to be based on the amount of matches you're winning. If you're winning and doing really well every week, then you should play a lighter schedule.

Federer, I think, was probably the first one to do that and did it extremely well, but you can't go, Oh, well, everyone should just play a lighter schedule, because not everyone is making the final every week like he was. You know, players that are lower down in the rankings need to make ranking points, they need to earn prize money, and, you know, make the most of the tournaments they can get into.

It depends on the quality of the player and the amount of matches that they are winning. It's not a straight answer for everyone.

Q. How tough will be Olympics 12 days after Wimbledon on clay?

ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, I mean, certainly it's a quick turnaround. The positive is that it's not that long from when Roland Garros will have finished to the players coming back onto the clay.

But, yeah, it will be hard. It's a really busy period of the year. Yeah, with a few surface changes, it will be difficult for the players, particularly the ones that do very well at Wimbledon, you know, to give yourselves enough time to, you know, to rest and recover from the grass season, and then enough time to get your body used to the clay again and well-prepared for the Olympics.

You know, it will be interesting to see what all the players do with their schedule, which tournaments they play after the Olympics and the buildup to New York.

Yeah, it will be a tricky period of the year for the players that are winning a lot of matches and doing well.

Q. Andy, is making any sense to consider Djokovic, Sinner, Alcaraz, and Medvedev a little bit like the new fab four and the other ones a little bit lower, or you see them much balanced the situation comparing to the past, to your era?

ANDY MURRAY: My feeling is that it takes a little bit of time to create that. I'm not saying that it's not possible that Alcaraz and Sinner and Medvedev or some of the younger guys are dominating and are at the sop of the sport and then the latter stages of the major events for five, six, seven years in a row, is definitely possible, and those guys are good enough to do it.

But I think, yeah, there is a little bit of, yeah, people are sort of searching for that era again of, like, a group of players that are competing and winning most weeks, but it takes time to build that. The doesn't come, like, from one tournament to the next. You know, it was over the course of I think, like, six, seven, eight years and playing in the finals of majors all of the time.

So let's see. I think it's a possibility, particularly with Alcaraz and Sinner. I think Medvedev is brilliant, as well. There is a possibility, yeah, that that happens but no guarantee.