TENNIS ROLAND GARROS 2014 – Andy Murray pre-tournament interview.

Q. James Ward has just qualified. You maybe were just watching it. What do you make of his achievement?

ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, it was great. I think especially the way the match went, as well. Yeah, they are the sort of matches you need to win, to fight through and find a way to win.

There were a lot of tough moments in that third set obviously serving for it and sort of saving match points. It was a long tough match.

But, you know, if you want to breakthrough and get on to the tour, you know everyone goes through them. Big win for him.

Q. When we spoke to you obviously very late at night after the Rafa defeat, very narrow defeat, you obviously were very tired. But reflecting back on that, do you maybe see that as possibly a turning point for you, that kind of quality of performance? Is that how you sort of come to look at it in time?

ANDY MURRAY: Yeah. Well, I think, you know, at the time it was obviously still it was a good match for me. It was good progress in Rome, and obviously, you know, the goal here is to keep that going and remain at that level as often as I can for the rest of the year.

But, yeah, right now obviously got a big focus on these next couple of weeks, and hopefully I can have a good run.

Q. What do you like to do when you’re in Paris like this? Do you have a special routine or restaurant, stuff you like to do?

ANDY MURRAY: No. I mean, I have stayed in a different hotel almost every year I have been here. Never really stayed in the same place. Been to a lot of different restaurants. I normally eat around the hotel, you know, wherever I’m staying, yeah.

I mean, I like walking around here. It’s a nice city with a lot of stuff going on.

Yeah, no special routine, no.

Q. What’s the situation now with your coach search? How close do you think you are? Have you approached anybody yet?

ANDY MURRAY: Yeah. Hopefully I’m fairly close. You know, I wouldn’t expect anything over the next few days obviously. But, yeah, closer than I was in Rome.

Yeah, would I hope to have someone in place.

Q. Would that be by Queen’s or might it be here?

ANDY MURRAY: Whenever it’s right, basically. For me it’s not about rushing into something. It’s about getting it right, getting the right person. Until that’s the case, you know, I’ll keep doing what I’m doing with, you know, the guys I’m working with.

Still also people that I can speak to, as well, about things. I have met a lot of good people that I respect and stuff and listen to their opinions on my travels, on the tennis tour. So, you know, I’m not in a panic to get someone, but it’s a lot closer than it was.

Q. Are you pretty much calling the shots on the coaching decisions? Are you consulting with a lot of people around you?

ANDY MURRAY: I chat to a few people about it, but ultimately it has to come down to the player/coach relationship’s, you know, very important. You know, if you speak to a lot of people about it, you know, everyone can have a completely different opinion on a certain individual.

You know, that can then also become confusing. You need to trust sort of your instincts on whether something’s going to work or not. That’s what I have done in the past, and it’s worked fairly well.

Q. Just considering, you know, where you are, how satisfied with your season are you so far considering you’re coming from the surgery and all this, looking at the next few weeks which are, you know, the meat of the tennis calendar?

ANDY MURRAY: Well, I was fairly happy with the start of the season with, you know, how I responded from the surgery in Australia. I thought I did pretty well there. I thought I played a fairly high level in the quarterfinals against Roger and, you know, physically probably endurance wise probably wasn’t quite ready, you know, to go the whole way there.

And then Davis Cup was fairly good for me. But then, yeah, since then it was very patchy. Some good stuff mixed in with some bad tennis.

Yeah, Rome was a good step forward. Like I said, I need to build on that, take confidence from it, and I need to try and keep that consistency for the next four or five months if I can.

Q. Having played Rafa in Rome, what’s your sort of take on the favoritism for this title? Rafa, as always, or Novak? Is it you as a big favorite? What do you think?

ANDY MURRAY: I don’t know. I also really don’t care, to be honest. For me, anyway, it really doesn’t matter. It’s stuff that everyone talks about.

But, you know, when, you know normally when the tournament starts, you know, whether Rafa has been playing well or not, I would expect him to play great tennis here.

I would expect Novak to play great tennis here.

Roger, you know, I would also expect to play very well.

That’s what they have done. So there is nothing there to suggest that they are all of a sudden going to stop performing well in the slams and struggle. I would expect them to all have great tournaments.

But who wins depends who plays the best at the end of the event really, and we don’t know that because we can’t predict the future.

Q. How much do you know about Golubev? I think you played him once before about five years ago or something like that.

ANDY MURRAY: I played him in the finals of St. Petersburg quite a while ago when he was just coming through. Yeah, he’s obviously been playing on the tour pretty much ever since then.

He’s had some good wins. You know, beat Wawrinka in the Davis Cup this year. He’s a very dangerous player, big forehand, goes for his shots. Yeah, he doesn’t hold back. When he’s on, he’s a very tough guy to beat.

But, you know, his form has been a bit inconsistent I think just because of his game style, really. He plays exciting tennis, goes for big shots, and when he’s on makes it very difficult.

Q. Going back to the coach briefly, before you appointed Lendl it was apparent your target was to win Grand Slams. Has it been more difficult this time working out what you want to get from a coach?

ANDY MURRAY: No, because the target is the same. The target is to win Grand Slams. That’s what I want to do. I will pick the person I feel is best able to help me with that.

The Ivan situation obviously worked out well. At that stage I obviously hadn’t won a Grand Slam, but the goal was still to win Grand Slams. That’s still the same goal now.

It’s just obviously being in the same position in his career where he hasn’t won a slam first, whatever he lost, first four or five finals, and that was probably why that one worked very well.

Q. Can you just tell us what you have been doing since Rome when you arrived here, where you’ve been practicing?

ANDY MURRAY: I went home for a couple of days, and then we got here on Tuesday evening. Practiced at Wimbledon and trained on Sunday after Rome well, two days after Rome.

Yeah, got here on Tuesday evening and have been practicing here for the last three days. Yeah, that’s it.

Q. James, his getting through, what do you think of his attributes? He’s a teammate of yours on Davis Cup. What his qualities are and what he can sort of achieve in his career, do you think?

ANDY MURRAY: Well, I mean, to be honest, what he can achieve is kind of really up to him and how much he wants to achieve. Because if you look at his results, he’s beaten very good players. He has the form in big matches to suggest that, you know, he could be a 50, 60, whatever, 70 in the world player with the guys he’s beaten.

And even in some of the matches he’s lost, he lost to Dodig at Queen’s last year with match points, and he’s put himself in a position to win quite a few big matches, as well.

He serves well. He has a good serve. He wins free points on his serve, which helps in today’s game a lot. Has a very, very good backhand crosscourt, world class maybe. Very few mistakes and very good.

But, yeah, just    yeah, he’s just been a bit inconsistent with his results really. That’s probably why it hasn’t got him to the top 100, because for probably two or three months a year he probably has played top 100 tennis, and then for the rest of the time it’s been a bit up and down.

But his results that he’s had and qualifying for, you know, for a slam on his worst surface. You know, it would suggest that with the grass court season coming up he’s going to have chances there that he could make a push in the next few months.