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MONTE-CARLO ROLEX MASTERS

April 14, 2010

Andy Murray

MONTE CARLO, MONACO

P. KOHLSCHREIBER/A. Murray
6-2, 6-1

THE MODERATOR: Questions for Andy.

Q. Can you talk us through that. What was going through your mind out there?
ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, I wasn't very good today. You know, the first time in a few years that, I mean, the court felt so small. You know, actually I felt fine mentally. I felt, you know, I had like the nerves back, I was nervous before the match.
I don't know, I just couldn't find the court. When it's like that, it's kind of difficult to play. I tried a few different things. I tried serve and volleying a couple times. I tried hitting some high balls. Didn't really make a whole lot of difference. Couldn't get the ball in the court.

Q. You missed a lot of first serves. Does that spread out to the rest of the game?
ANDY MURRAY: I mean, my first-serve percentage is something that's not been, you know, like -- statistically, it's not been like in the top 10 players. But, you know, it's never held me back from winning matches.
I think that on clay, you know, you can see guys serving at 75%, 80% first serves, but there's just kicking the first serves in. I think on clay, it's less relevant than the other surfaces.
You know, I mean, my groundstrokes are the thing that's normally the best part of my game, normally very consistent. You know, I hardly hit a ball on the court. I don't know how many, but my groundstrokes were really poor.

Q. You said you felt nerves coming back before the game. Any particular reason?
ANDY MURRAY: No. It's great. I want to feel nervous before every match. I think every player does. It shows that you care. It gets the adrenaline going. You know, that's when you tend to play your best tennis.
The last few months it wasn't necessarily like that. I was just going on and playing, was getting angry with myself and frustrated and upset.
You know, today, like I say, I felt fine mentally. Just couldn't find the court with my shots. So, you know, I'm going to need to get a lot better if I want to do well this clay court season.

Q. Do you think you are thinking too much or you are not thinking enough on court?
ANDY MURRAY: No, I think in the States I wasn't thinking enough on the court. You know, today I was thinking. My mind was clear of, you know, what I was actually trying to do. When I was losing, I was trying to do some different things. But I couldn't do it. The ball wasn't going in. I was making mistakes when I tried to do different shots. Tried some slice, some dropshots, high balls, tried returning closer in, tried returning further back. That was it. I just wasn't hitting the ball well at all. That's why I lost.

Q. How many days of practice did you have on clay? Were you hitting the ball well in practice?
ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, I've been hitting the ball well in practice. I got here on Wednesday evening. So I had Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. So five, six days here. And I practiced a few days in the States, as well, on green clay. So it wasn't through lack of practice.

Q. Anything about the way he played that made it a bit tougher today?
ANDY MURRAY: Well, he plays well on clay. He was very consistent today. Didn't make many mistakes.
But, you know, at this level, you need to force your opponents to hit errors, and I wasn't able to do that. You know, I was making mistakes. I'd only played him once before earlier this year. You know, his game hasn't changed that much. You know, he just played very solid, made a lot of balls, and I made all the errors.
So that's why the result ended up that way.

Q. Could you compare the moment you are living now, this result, with another moment of your career?
ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, I've been -- I mean, obviously the last two tournaments have been bad. You know, yeah, it's been a long time since I lost a couple of matches like this.
But I think, you know, I have to make sure that, uhm, you know, I don't panic. You know, everyone I think can go through periods where they don't play well. You know, I've lost to good players. Obviously, the score line has not been very close in the last couple of matches.
I just need to start playing better. It's probably been a couple of years. Last year, the whole year, I was very consistent. The years before that, I was a little bit inconsistent. But I need to try and find that again and find my consistency, then I'll start to play well.

Q. Does this change possibly your clay schedule?
ANDY MURRAY: I don't know. I haven't spoken to the guys about it yet. I'll wait and see, speak to them, you know, see what I think what's going to work best. You know, obviously you always plan for the best-case scenario.
But last year that was fine, I didn't really have to change my schedule. This year, I might need to tweak it a little bit, you know, because the last couple months haven't gone as well as I would have liked.
Just have to wait and see.

End of FastScripts

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