US Open 2014 – Andy Murray: “The wind swirls a lot on that court. It can be windy on Ashe, but normally it goes in one direction” - UBITENNIS

US Open 2014 – Andy Murray: “The wind swirls a lot on that court. It can be windy on Ashe, but normally it goes in one direction”

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TENNIS US OPEN – 30th of August 2014. A. Murray d. A. Kuznetsov 6-1, 7-5, 4-6, 6-2. An interview with Andy Murray

Q. That wasn’t the easiest of matches today. Was he a little bit tougher than you imagined?

ANDY MURRAY: No. I mean, I expected him to play well. He obviously would have been confident from his last match. The first couple sets were pretty good. And then I started a bit slow in the beginning of the third. He gained confidence from that and he definitely started hitting the ball better in the third set. Almost got myself back into that, had a breakpoint at 4-All, hit net cord. I don’t know why I didn’t run for the ball. I thought it was just going to drop over and it didn’t. Obviously got broken the next game, so… It was a tricky match. But came through well.

Q. Seemed to be coming in a fair amount. Was that sort of a deliberate thing?

ANDY MURRAY: Well, you try to pick the right moments to come in. I won most of my points up at the net the other night with Bachinger. Today I thought I came in at the right times and won most of the points up there, especially the first couple of sets. I didn’t come in as much in the third and fourth sets. But in the beginning I came in well.

Q. What are the discrepancies between playing on Armstrong and Ashe?

ANDY MURRAY: The wind swirls a lot on that court. It can be windy on Ashe, but normally it goes in one direction. I mean, as a player, when it’s windy it’s nice to know that if you’re playing into the wind, which is normally the harder end to play from, you tend to have to do a bit more running. You know when you sit down at the change of ends you’re going to have the wind with you the next time. But on that court sometimes you can play four games in a row into the wind because it changes so, so often, changes during games. That’s tricky. Also it’s a very tight, tight court as well. There’s not much runback compared with Ashe. I don’t know, outside the lines there’s not that much space.

Q. You appeared to get a bit cross.

ANDY MURRAY: I wasn’t cross. I certainly wasn’t cross. I was just making a point. I almost ran with my knee straight into the camera at the back of the court.

Q. Quite a solid object?

ANDY MURRAY: Yeah. If I was a spectator, and a player had to stop because he got hit by a camera that was too close to the back of the court, then I would be annoyed if I was watching that. So, yeah, you certainly wouldn’t get that an Ashe because there’s much bigger runback.

Q. You’re playing Tsonga next. How do you see this match after the battle you had with him in Toronto?

ANDY MURRAY: It will be a tough match. We played each other a lot of times. He’s obviously playing well right now. He had a great week in Canada. Yeah, he’s played some good tennis so far here. Obviously it will be a tough match.

Q. Anything you will change compared to the last match?

ANDY MURRAY: Not really. I played a good match. I was up a break in the third set and didn’t manage to close it out. So obviously if I get myself in that position again, hopefully I’ll do a better job of that. But I don’t need to change too much.

Q. Do you think your game generally matches up well against his?

ANDY MURRAY: Well, I’ve had a lot of close matches with him. But I’ve won a lot against him, as well. So, yeah, I mean, I would say it matches up well. But he’s obviously playing extremely well just now. And, yeah, I’m aware it’s going to be a very tricky match.

Q. I read an interview with Mauresmo where she mentioned before Wimbledon she was advised not to read the British press because there would be a lot of coverage of your new relationship. I’m wondering how much scrutiny from the outside, if at all, has affected the young dynamic between you?

ANDY MURRAY: I don’t think it’s affected it at all. I mean, I think the first few days were definitely different. I mean, obviously the time of the year was always going to be tricky. But, yeah, after the first few days, and certainly when we got away from Wimbledon, were able to just, you know, have some privacy, spent a couple of weeks together in Miami, yeah. I haven’t read much about it since Wimbledon. It’s been going — well, it’s been going well from my side anyway. I’ve enjoyed it. And, yeah, hopefully it will keep going.

Q. Do you read your mom’s columns ever?

ANDY MURRAY: No.

Q. Just on Amélie. At Wimbledon you said it was too soon to judge. How much of an effect do you think she’s having on your game?

ANDY MURRAY: I think it takes longer than just a couple months. I said the same thing with Ivan, as well. I think it takes five, six months before you can really change much. Since Wimbledon we’ve only had actually two weeks of practice, and practice is really where you can start to make changes to your game if there’s things you want to improve. The way the tennis season works, you know, you obviously train a couple of weeks, then you have tournaments. It will be nice by the end of this year, we’ll have a few more practice weeks, and then also the off-season where you can spend three weeks, three or four weeks, together. So I would hope you’d start to see some changes, things I’m trying to work on, see them really improving by the Australian Open. But there’s no reason why I can’t have good results right now and she can’t influence things right now. In terms of actually making changes to your game, it takes more than two weeks of practice.

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