TENNIS WIMBLEDON 2014 – A. Murray d. B. Rola 6-1, 6-1, 6-0. An interview with Andy Murray
Q. The Duchess of Cornwell left Centre Court today so she could come and watch you. How pleased are you with that?
ANDY MURRAY: Well, it’s nice that she came to watch the match obviously. But, yeah, I don’t really understand. Was it nice that she left the other court?
Q. Yes.
ANDY MURRAY: Well, it was nice that she came to watch me. That was it.
Q. I know you’ve only been working with Amélie for a short time. How much of an impact has she been able to have already on what you’re doing on court?
ANDY MURRAY: Well, not loads, because you can’t change things in a week. You can’t make massive differences to the way someone plays.
I think they can definitely help with your mindset and your concentration and things like that. I think it’s easier to make a quick improvement on those things.
But in terms of making changes to my game or improving things in my game, that will take longer.
Q. Following on from what you said about the French Open, would you always prefer to win matches pretty quickly like that? For example, last year, the match against Verdasco, did that help you in the latter two matches?
ANDY MURRAY: I think, you know, you’re going to get tested during the tournament. Sometimes that happens in the first round, and sometimes it can happen in semifinals. It can happen at any moment in the tournament. You just have to be ready for it and expect it before every single match.
I go into each match expecting to lose serve, expecting to go behind, you know, so your mind is ready and you don’t get too down on yourself if that happens.
Yeah, I mean, I’m happy to come through matches as quickly as possible, but you’re going to get tested at some stage during the tournament. Obviously the further you go in the draw, the tougher the matches are going to get.
Q. Last year I remember you training in between some of your matches with Kyle Edmund. I was wondering if that might be anything you were doing this year and how you assess his progress?
ANDY MURRAY: I practiced with a lot of the British guys the year before. Oliver Golding. I practiced with him last year. I practiced with Kyle. Since I’ve been here, I have practiced with James Ward, Dan Smethurst, Dan Cox. I try to play with all the British guys when I can.
In terms of Kyle’s progress, you know, there’s been parts of the year where we’ve played some good tennis. I practiced with him at a couple of the Davis Cup ties, and he was playing some good tennis.
I obviously haven’t seen him play loads of matches, but he’s making that step up now from playing the futures to the challengers. It takes a bit of time to get used to that level because it’s a higher level.
In the futures tournaments, you’ll be getting seeded and might be playing guys that are ranked at 900 in the world, whereas in the challengers, he’s coming up against players ranked 100 in the world, 150 in the world. So it takes a bit of time. Just need to be patient with him, and hopefully he’ll keep improving.
Q. I appreciate what you say about how it might be early for Amélie to change things on the court. Can you talk about the chemistry so far.
ANDY MURRAY: It’s been good. I enjoy spending time with her on the court. I enjoy spending time with her off it. We chatted well about the matches. You know, we obviously discussed the things, you know, I felt like I needed to improve or add things to my game. We’ve chatted about that. We agreed on most things, so that’s good.
But, yeah, I think it’s been working well so far. But, again, like I said at the beginning of the tournament, it’s very difficult to make a change in the space of a week. It takes time in all sports.
You know, if things go well, if we agree to keep working together, then I’ll have some time after the tournament.
Q. Your thoughts on Aljaz Bedene becoming a British player? Would you welcome him in the Davis Cup team?
ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, I don’t really mind, to be honest. You know, the rules are there. I don’t make the rules.
Yeah, if he becomes a British citizen and is able to play, then I see no reason why he shouldn’t be able to do it.
Q. That was your most economical match in terms of time and games. When you’re hammering somebody like that, is there a moment where you feel sympathy for him or is it relentless pressure to get on and off the court?
ANDY MURRAY: To be honest, you just try to win the match. You know, I mean, I talk about it a lot. You put a lot of hours of practice and hard work, training, all the stuff you do in the gym for these tournaments. It hurts a lot of the time.
When you are in a position to win a match like that, you have to try and do it as quickly as possible, because all of the players in this tournament are very, very good tennis players. If you give them, you know, a look in in a set or they see a way back in, they can start playing very well.
You just try to keep it going.
Q. Is there much difference, Andy, playing on Centre to 1, how the two courts are playing? Do you accept the fact you have to have at least one outing off of Centre Court?
ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, I don’t care about that, to be honest. But I think since the roof came in on Centre, you feel more of a difference between the two courts. I think before when the roof wasn’t there, they felt kind of similar.
With the roof, that changes things a little bit. A bit more wind gets into Court 1. It swirls a little bit more. Obviously when you toss the ball up and things, you know, with the roof there, the sun obviously doesn’t affect you quite as bad on Centre Court.
Yeah, it sounds a little bit different. It echos a little bit stiff on Centre Court when you strike the ball, where on Court 1 it’s not like that. So they play slightly differently.
Q. As a football fan, what did you make of Suarez last night?
ANDY MURRAY: I don’t think you look at that as kind of a football fan. It’s just wrong. I just think it looks really weird seeing a person bite someone else. I just don’t see how that would come into your, yeah, thinking.
Well, obviously he’s not thinking clearly at the time. There was obviously something not quite right there. I think it’s the third time he’s done it now.
It’s not particularly nice to see. You can understand sometimes someone lashing out or whatever. But the biting’s far too much.
Q. Your mother’s version this morning of the rescue, she found it quite harrowing. What did she say to you afterwards?
ANDY MURRAY: Nothing because I didn’t see her. She was like two cars behind when I got out of the car. So she came out and tried to help. She couldn’t actually hold the dog still because it was pretty strong. It was a big dog.
But, yeah, I didn’t really see her. When I took the dog into the car park, she went to try and find the owner.
Q. She said she saw you jump out of the car in the middle of traffic.
ANDY MURRAY: Well, she was two cars behind me. We were at the traffic light. She obviously saw it.
Yeah, I don’t think I’ve seen her since. I don’t think I’ve seen her since then, yeah.
Q. Can you tell the whole story for those of us who haven’t had it in your words?
ANDY MURRAY: Well, basically I was driving from home. It was like two minutes from my house. Got to a traffic light. I parked. It was red, so I parked or stopped. Saw a dog running round like the corner.
This is going to be hard for me to explain. But basically where I am at the traffic lights I would then go right. The dog was coming round from that way down the hill.
I basically was like, What’s going on? I didn’t see an owner. Then I just jumped out the car. The dog started running towards the traffic that was coming.
Yeah, you just get visions of a car coming round that corner and hitting the dog. So I just stopped in front of the traffic, got out, stopped the traffic, then tried to stop the dog.
The dog had obviously been chasing something because it was so tired, so it sat down on the road. I just grabbed it by the collar and, yeah, threw it in the back of my car, then drove to the place where people where I live walk the dogs. I called the number that was on the tag.
Yeah, I left a message. But as I was leaving the message, my mom had bumped into the owner and gave the dog to the owner. Then left. That was it basically.
