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SHANGHAI ROLEX MASTERSOctober 13, 2012Andy MurraySHANGHAI, CHINA A. MURRAY/R. Federer THE MODERATOR: Questions, please. Q. Was that as well as you played against him? You played well here in the final two years ago. But is that even more aggressive? ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, I mean, obviously it's hard to weigh up matches. He didn't serve that well for him tonight, so I was able to be very aggressive on his second serve. He maybe slowed down his first serve a little bit so I was able to take a few more chances on the first serve. Obviously that helped. But, yeah, I went for it like I did the last few times I played against him, and I worked tonight. Q. You've obviously beaten Roger a number of times now. Is there always something a bit special about beating him, considering his status in the game? ANDY MURRAY: Well, I mean, when you're beating the best player of all time probably, yeah, it's obviously going to be special. Each time you get to step on the court with him, as well, that's always special, too. You're not always going to win against him, but I've always enjoyed the challenge of playing against him. I haven't won against him every time, but I've always enjoyed the challenge of playing against him, you know, seeing how my game matches up against him. You know, things have changed from the first few times we played, the tactics, how we played, the game styles and stuff. He's obviously made some adjustments, too. I've had to do the same. You know, I lost three or four times almost in a row, or four times out of five. So, you know, I had to maybe change things a little bit, as well. Q. Both times it was a rain delay, it was Roger leading the charge to the umpire's chair to stop the match. Both times it was key points. How frustrating is that? ANDY MURRAY: Well, when he's serving, he said two or three points before, he felt the rain in the air, and he just asked if it was raining. You couldn't see very much on the court, then it started to come down a little bit. It's obviously a very important time of the match. If the ball hits the line when it's raining on the hard courts, you can't make contact with the ball, it comes through so quickly. It's completely normal to stop at that point. And the court gets dangerous very quickly, too. We just had a chat at the net. He said, Do you want to keep playing? I said, I'm happy to wait until it stops and just see if it calms down a little bit, 'cause if it rains constantly for five, ten minutes on a hard court, it gets dangerous, so... It wasn't frustrating. Obviously, when I went to serve for the match, it started raining pretty hard and the drops on the court were much bigger, so we had to stop then. But whether it was him that decided or not didn't make it frustrating. It was more that you're serving for the match, so obviously you'd like the opportunity to do that while you're still sort of warm and ready. Q. How surprised are you to see Roger double‑fault three times? Did that give you an indication of the pressure he was under? ANDY MURRAY: I mean, it's probably a combination of both. You know, I haven't seen him do that probably almost in his whole career. So I was being aggressive behind the second serve. But even still, that's not something that he normally would do. But it can be tough. The balls here are very light, so it can be tough to control the serve a little bit. But, yeah, it was surprising. Q. Best‑of‑three sets opposed to a best‑of‑five, does that change your approach to the match at all? ANDY MURRAY: Not really. I mean, there's stages maybe in matches in Grand Slams or points where you maybe try to conserve your energy a little bit. If you're 40‑Love down in a game, you don't want to be running five, six times across the court chasing balls down. You might take a few more chances. When it's best‑of‑three, you would hope you would not get tired in a best‑of‑three set match. You can maybe play every single point in the match as hard as you can. That's really the only difference. Q. Last two big matches you played, you had one guy holding things up with a medical timeout before you're serving for the match and you've had half an hour rain delay. What goes through your mind? How do you keep calm? Do you turn off? ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, I mean, it's not easy, you know, when you're going to serve for the match. But it's something I never minded doing. I always feel like I focus well when I'm serving for sets or serving for matches. Probably end up getting broken tomorrow serving for a set after saying that (smiling). I just focus extra hard. I take my time in between the points and make sure I really concentrate on where I'm going to serve, what I'm going to do with the first ball in the rally, then take it from there. Today I hit a couple of good serves in that last game, but Roger also missed a couple of backhands, too. Q. Can you talk a little bit about your relationship with Novak. I know you came up through the juniors together. You've practiced here this week. Do you consider yourself friends, just colleagues? ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, I mean, I'd say we're friends. I've known him for 14, 15 years now. I've never had any problems with him on the court, never had any problems with him off the court. We've obviously had some incredibly tough matches which can test maybe a friendship. But we've always been I think pretty respectful of each other. I mean, yeah, I'd say we're friends. But we can't be spending loads of time together off the court, going out for dinner and stuff 'cause, you know, you don't want to get too close to guys you're competing in massive matches for. Q. The final tomorrow. A rematch of the US Open final. I think you and Novak are the same age. You trained together here Monday or Tuesday. Have you ever thought about you were going to meet him in a final when you trained together? ANDY MURRAY: No. We practiced on Tuesday. Obviously weren't thinking about that when we were practicing together. I practiced with him quite a lot before, practiced with him before tournaments, before Grand Slams many times before. Practiced with him here again. I mean, there's obviously going to be a chance that we might play each other in a tournament if we both go deep. He's been incredibly consistent. So, you know, I know if I get to the latter stage of the event, there's a good chance I'll play against him. It's obviously good preparation for us to practice with each other. We try also not to give too much away in practice either. It's beneficial for both of us. Q. When you came back on court after the second break, the crowd were chanting Roger's name. What was going through your mind at the moment? ANDY MURRAY: I was just thinking about what I was going to do with the first serve of the last game. That's all I was thinking about. To make sure that I move my feet, don't make any bad decisions. I played Roger many times when the crowd have chanted his name or shouted his name. It was nothing unusual. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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