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THE ARTOIS CHAMPIONSHIPS

June 10, 2008

Andy Murray

LONDON, ENGLAND

A. MURRAY/S. Grosjean
2-0 (ret.)

THE MODERATOR: Questions for Andy.

Q. Not much good to you really.
ANDY MURRAY: Obviously, I would have rather to have won the match normally. You know, you get a bit more confidence from that.
But, yeah, I mean, I got a good hour, hour and 15 minutes on the court last night for the doubles, which helped, and I felt pretty comfortable on the shots that I did hit in that match, which was good.
But, yeah, would have liked to have played a bit longer.

Q. Now you can go watch the [] Spain game?
ANDY MURRAY: I could do, yeah. But I'm going to go practice again this afternoon and go to the gym. So, yeah, that'll have to wait.

Q. Were you aware he was struggling before the warmup? Were you aware early on?
ANDY MURRAY: No, well, I just didn't see him warming up before the match. I thought maybe he'd practiced earlier. I wasn't sure. He'd had a problem with his elbow I think before the French Open and he hurt his hamstring in Monte-Carlo and didn't play. He's not played for six, seven weeks.
I wasn't expecting him to stop the match, but I thought maybe he was hurting a little bit.

Q. How long will you practice this afternoon? Will you use that as the sort of substitute match?
ANDY MURRAY: I'll practice for about an hour, go in the gym for an hour. I warmed up before my match for about 45 minutes. Yeah, I'll just do a little bit. I'll probably have doubles tomorrow and use that as my preparation for the next match.

Q. You win, but it's a letdown, isn't it, a match like that?
ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, I was just saying before you came that, yeah, you'd rather win the match normally just because you gain more confidence from it.
I had a decent amount of time on the doubles court last night, you know. Yeah, I would have rather won normally, but you take the win.

Q. To finish with 136 mile-an-hour serve, isn't a bad way to do it.
ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, that was a nice way to finish (smiling).

Q. Must be happy with that. A decent speed to get up to in one service game.
ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, when you've got a serve as poor and mine, yeah, it's nice to hit aces that big (smiling).

Q. Did you watch the men's final on Sunday?
ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, I did watch it.

Q. What did you think of it?
ANDY MURRAY: I thought it was pretty special. It was probably I guess the best match you're going to see in a Grand Slam from one player. I didn't think Federer played particularly well. But I think Nadal hit four, maybe five unforced errors in the first two sets. I guess he probably hit a couple in the third set.
You know, I guess it's kind of history on the line, a Grand Slam final, to sort of play with so few nerves, so much belief that you're going to win the match against someone as good as Federer, I think just shows how good Nadal is. You know, he's going to go down, I think, as the best clay court player ever.

Q. Considering what he did last year at Wimbledon in this form, what do you think he can do this year?
ANDY MURRAY: It's tough because, you know, last year he did win a couple of very close matches early on in the tournament and also the year before he struggled at the beginning of the tournament, too.
But he's made final a couple years in a row, so he's definitely one of the favorites to win it. But I still feel like there's more chance of him maybe losing before the final than there is of Federer.

Q. Do you think Federer is still the favorite?
ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, definitely, yeah.

Q. It was unlike him to lose a match in such a way. Can other players take anything from that at all?
ANDY MURRAY: No, but it's a little bit worrying for the rest of the guys next year on the clay if he's improving like that. He seems to be getting better on the clay, Nadal.
It's tough. At the start of the year, everyone is saying Federer is going down, he's not playing as well. He's made final of the French, semis of the Australian Open, has played well in the Masters Series on the clay. So I don't think he's losing it that much.

Q. Has he lost that air of invincibility that he's had?
ANDY MURRAY: I mean, I don't know. I still think he's the best player in the world. Until he's gone down to No. 2 in the rankings. He's still a long way ahead of Nadal and Djokovic in terms of ranking points and what have you.
I mean, if he continues to win Wimbledon, dominate the US Open like he has been, then, yeah, he's still going to be the best. But, you know, I think it's good for tennis. There's a few more guys that have, you know, a chance of winning against him, better chance at winning slams now.

Q. You dispensed with the cap today. Is that a new thing?
ANDY MURRAY: I played one match on the tour, or two matches on the tour, without a cap before. I always used to have obviously pretty big hair. I did it because the hair obviously got in my eyes and stuff (smiling).
Yeah, now I cut it a bit shorter. Yeah, brought me a little bit of luck today I guess, so I might keep with it.

Q. There's a lot of talk about grass court tennis slowing down. Can you describe where grass court tennis now ranks in terms of speed compared to the other surfaces that you play on throughout the year?
ANDY MURRAY: I mean, I guess if you take some of the guys that play well on it, and the guys that don't play so well, I mean, the South Americans struggle a lot on it. If it was slow like clay, you know, the other courts which they obviously play very well on, you could say that it's a much fairer court.
But, you know, I still think that the guys that play best are the ones that play flat, the ones that come forward a bit, and like the slightly quicker surfaces. Clearly it is slower. I've watched, you know, videos of matches from six, seven years ago, and it was obviously even much quicker then.
But the ball still bounces low. Like you saw today, when you're able to serve big on the court, it's much easier to ace than on other surfaces. I don't think it's that slow. But I guess I'm not used to what the courts were like from a long time ago.

Q. Do you take much notice of what the juniors are doing? The juniors are going down pretty fast.
ANDY MURRAY: Sorry?

Q. The juniors, the British juniors, younger players, are getting taken out all over the place at the moment. Are you watching that?
ANDY MURRAY: What, losing matches?

Q. Yes.
ANDY MURRAY: Well, yeah, I saw a little bit of the match today. Obviously, I was following it. Went by pretty quick.
You know, I thought James Ward played well yesterday. I think Richard Bloomfield is playing against GonzÃ¡lez later on today. Yeah, we could do with a few more wins, that's for sure.

Q. What are your expectations in this grass court season, given that you missed the corresponding period 12 months ago? Have you set yourself goals as to what you want to achieve? Aside from obviously wanting to win the tournament, what would you regard as progress?
ANDY MURRAY: Well, I'd like to get into the second week of Wimbledon and then, you know, do better than I did the last time.
You know, but it's a tough one. I think for me anyway, if you go into a tournament with a mindset of, you know, I don't feel like, uhm -- you know, if I say I want to get to the fourth round, then when you get to the fourth round you're kind of happy with what you've done, you know, you don't have the right mentality going into the next matches. You know, I think you have to go in believing that you can win the tournament. If you get to the quarters, semifinals, it's still a good result. But you've given yourself the best chance to win the tournament.

Q. Do you think that's a realistic goal, like a quarterfinal, semifinal this year?
ANDY MURRAY: Well, my goal is to try and win the tournament. But, I mean, I guess I've never made the quarterfinals of a slam before, so it would be progress.

End of FastScripts

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