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SONY ERICSSON OPEN

March 30, 2007

Andy Murray

KEY BISCAYNE, FLORIDA

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. Was there any suspicion, it looked from upstairs as if you were struggling a little bit with your movement today. Or is that not right?
ANDY MURRAY: I don't want to make any excuses today. He played better than me, I wasn't very good. It was the worst match that I've probably played since I've been on the tour. He was much better than me today. So no excuses.

Q. Have you ever had anybody hit so many drop shots against you?
ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, I've had guys that hit drop shots against me before, but you know, when normally I get to them, I do something creative. And every time today I hit the ball straight back to him, gave him a bit more confidence in the drop shot. He kept doing it. Every time I got there, you know, he read where it was going, and he won the point.

Q. Andy, I know you don't want to make excuses. Let's just clarify, you didn't have any problems with your groin injury?
ANDY MURRAY: I don't want to make any excuses, because it's going to be the reason why I lost. It wasn't the reason I lost today. He played much better than me. I didn't do anything that could have upset him or messed up his rhythm. I gave him a lot of free points, missed too many first serves, and he played a great match and hardly made any unforced errors.

Q. What makes him a tough player for you?
ANDY MURRAY: He's a Top 10 player, all of them are really tough. They all play kind of different styles. You know, he serves well, he's solid on the return, he moves good. He does everything pretty well. He's a very solid player, he's worked on his volleys a bit, doesn't make as many errors as he used to.
That's why he's one of the best players in the world. He deserves to be in the Top 10, because he's worked on his game a lot.

Q. It looked to me today, Andy, as if Novak was in a very, very patient mood. Maybe that got to you a little bit, that he was prepared to hang tough with you on the baseline and just not give you any free points. Did that really get to you after a while?
ANDY MURRAY: Well, I've played guys that do that before, and it's not normally that much of a problem. I like playing from the baseline, and I like it when guys try and play patient because that's normally what I do well. I normally make a lot of balls, I mix the pace up well from the baseline and come to the net when I have a chance. I was just making mistakes too early in the rally today.

Q. Those early backhand errors on balls that were just basically rally balls, did you have a sense early in the match that something was not right today?
ANDY MURRAY: No, I mean I had my chance at the start of the match to break him, and I obviously played a bad service game in the next game. Maybe if I got myself ahead, I could have got a bit more confidence in my shots, but I let him get ahead, and you know, it wasn't anything in particular, I was just missing balls that I wouldn't normally miss. Against a guy like him who doesn't make so many errors, you can't just give points away.

Q. Is there any point during a match like that where you just can't wait for it to be over? Or do you still stay as focused all the way to the end? Or is there a point where you just know that it's kind of a lost cause?
ANDY MURRAY: No, I mean, you try to fight until the end. I started chasing balls down, I wasn't giving up on any points. Obviously it's disappointing when you come off your match and you've played like that and lost so badly. It's the first time it's happened to me since I've been on the tour, so I've never had that feeling before. I've come back from set and break down before, so I wanted to keep fighting. But nothing happened for me today, and I took a bad beating.

Q. Did you feel you were fighting hard through the whole match?
ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, I was trying to fight. I was trying to do some different things. When I was coming to the net, my approach shots weren't good enough, and I was kind of guessing a little bit at the net.
You know, when he started drop shotting in the second set, I was getting to the ball and just hitting it straight back to him, which I don't normally do. So I was definitely still fighting, it was just nothing was happening for me.

Q. On a broader note, this is the second match and event in a row you made it to the semis, and obviously you're rising up the ranks. Can you reflect a little bit on him and you and your generation starting to make your move up the ranks?
ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, you know, both of us started the year really well. Both have won a tournament already, and he obviously made final last week, and I've made two semis now.
I think it's good for tennis. We've got quite a few teenagers in the Top 20 now, and guys that have just come out of their teens like Gasquet, Berdych, Baghdatis. I think it's good for tennis to see these new faces around. We'll probably be around for the next few years.

Q. A loss is a loss, Andy. But is it embarrassing to be a professional and have to go through that? What is the feeling?
ANDY MURRAY: I think if it's happening consistently to you, I don't think it's probably the nicest feeling. You know, it's happened to better players than me before. And I've lost badly. Sharapova against Serena was 1 and 1, as well.
I guess it's going to happen sometime in your career, and I'd rather it happened earlier, you know, so that you can learn from it. You never want it to happen again. But it's a good humbling experience, and I'll just have to try to improve on my game and get better to make sure it never happens again.

End of FastScripts

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