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WESTERN & SOUTHERN OPEN

August 18, 2011

Andy Murray

CINCINNATI, OHIO

A. MURRAY/A. Bogomolov
6-2, 7-5

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. I guess you must have watched some of that, did you, Andy?
ANDY MURRAY: Just literally the very end of it. Just saw the last game or so.

Q. How much will that take out of either of them? Either of them really, but the winner really because you might meet him in the semifinal.
ANDY MURRAY: Right now that's irrelevant. Just try and get through the next one, which could be against one of the best players in the world in Ferrer. Obviously Simon has had a good run, too.
But in terms that match, I'm sure both of them will be tired, especially after not playing that much the last few months.
Rafa, he normally always has to do quite a lot of running in his matches. From the points I saw, it looked like it was pretty tough, so I'm sure he'll be tired.

Q. Were there an unusual number of distractions in your match today in your match on Court 3? There were some questionable line calls and a few other things.
ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, the line calls is just something that it just seems -- I think they're highlighted more now because, you know, a lot of times I play on courts have Hawk-Eye. So when you don't, you know, there is maybe three or four in a match of -- I dont know how many points we played exactly; I'm guessing it would have been around 120 points. It's not really that much. Maybe seems that way because you're used to being able to challenge.
Maybe seems like there are more, but probably wasn't that many.

Q. Had to feel good to turn the tables on him from Miami after what happened there.
ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, it was good. I played better today. I was struggling a lot in Miami and didn't play well at all. But, yeah, glad to come through in two sets and forget about the match I played against him in Miami.

Q. You won a lot of titles at these Masters events in North America on hardcourts. You haven't done as well this year. Do you think you're changing your focus away from those tournaments where you've already done well to other things?
ANDY MURRAY: I think I always want to play well in those tournaments. I guess the preparation for the big events, you know, for the slams, you need to -- you want to play well here and you want to play matches in them. And then in the clay court season I played pretty well in the Masters Series. Just been on the hardcourts I've definitely struggled this year.
So my priority now is to play my best at the slams. That doesn't mean I want to show up and lose in the first round like I did last week. That definitely wasn't the plan.

Q. With Novak and Roger and Rafa at the top in the rankings and have been so entrenched there, what's it like for you to be on the cusp of that, and how does that affect the men's field because they've been so dominant.
ANDY MURRAY: I think Novak has been dominant this year and Rafa was dominant the year before. You know, I managed to get to 2 in the world in 2009, and I think it's just been the last couple of years -- I mean, obviously this year Novak is clearly going to finish No. 1 in the world. I think that's pretty obvious, unless something extraordinary happens between now and then.
I'm competing in a very, very tough era, but it's fun because you get a chance to compete against those guys. I'm sure over the next year or couple years, if I keep learning and improving, then I'll be able to push on and hopefully get past them.

Q. You talked yesterday about getting better day to day. What was better today than it was yesterday?
ANDY MURRAY: Just hitting the ball a little bit cleaner today. Just still definitely like to do things better, but I was hitting the ball cleaner from the back of the court.
Didn't move particularly well, and that's something that I'll need to improve on in this kind of 10, 11 days of before the US Open. Want to try and make sure that's perfect before the start of the US Open.

Q. Another player who has been criticized for having better success at other tournaments than slams is Caroline Wozniacki. Today it was announced she split with her father/coach. He said that it was because of criticisms that she wasn't playing the right kind of game with him coaching. Have you ever made any sort of changes based on criticism from the outside, or do you try to keep things just in your own...
ANDY MURRAY: You can never think about what anyone else is saying, because everyone has different op[inions. You just need to trust the team that you work with. If you start listening to what everyone else is saying you get confused.
A lot times people are being, yeah, overly critical. But when you actually look at things, like from my side this year, I think I've done pretty well in the Slams. I lost obviously to Novak in Australia and Rafa in the last two.
You know, they're for sure the No. 1 and 2 players in the world, so there's not a whole lot I've been doing wrong this year. So you need to just kind of trust the work that you're doing, hopefully keep improving; and if you aren't improving or don't feel like you are, that's when you need to think about making changes.
I think this year in the slams I played better than I have done in the past, so I need to be happy with that.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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