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AEGON CHAMPIONSHIPSJune 18, 2015Andy MurrayLONDON, ENGLAND A. MURRAY/F. Verdasco THE MODERATOR: Questions, please. Q. Gilles was talking about how he knows you back in the Barcelona days. Tell us a little bit more about how good friends you are and how you get to know him even better now that he's being coached by Jamie. ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, I have known him a long time. We are not unbelievably close, but obviously I've spent quite a lot of time with Jamie and I watch a lot of Gilles' matches through that. Obviously want him to do well. Yeah, he's a very nice guy, quiet guy but good fun. Yeah, I mean, I have spent more time with him the last year than I have previously. But I have known him for a number of years now. Q. I think you hit a little bit with Jamie in the spring when your coaching situation was kind of still being decided upon. Is he somebody who you can imagine maybe working with at some point in your career? ANDY MURRAY: I don't know, to be honest. I mean, I hope that my coaching arrangement I have just now lasts for a long time. I think, you know, it's better to have continuity. I'm not that young anymore, so I don't want to have new coaches like every year or every couple of years. I mean, I think Jamie is very knowledgeable about the game. He loves tennis. He's obviously been on the tour himself for a long time. He's done a very good job with Gilles. Gilles was coming back from an injury when they started together, but I'm pretty sure he got him up to his career‑high ranking or helped get him there. Gilles would be, you know, fairly old now, so he's done a very good job there and he's a good friend of mine. Q. Another guy you have respect for, Ian Hughes, he's doing a pretty good job by the looks of things with Svitolina. Do you think it's a bit of a shame, Jamie having done well, that they are kind of not working in the British system, so to speak? ANDY MURRAY: I think there will be opportunities for that in the future. I think it's a shame that they maybe weren't given a chance first to work with some of the better up‑and‑coming players. But, you know, it's different, because, you know, coming off the tour like Jamie has, it's different coaching, you know, 16‑, 17‑, 18‑year‑olds. Ian Hughes spent a lot of time working with ‑‑when I spent time with him, it was 13, 14, 15, a very different thing, also coaching a player on the tour, as it is coaching a young player coming up. I don't think you can go from coaching or playing on the tour and then going to coaching a 12‑, 13‑year‑old. I think you need to learn how to do that, learn how to communicate with kids, learn how to teach technique. But both of them are ‑‑I have worked with both of them, Ian when I was young. I haven't worked with Jamie, but I spent time on court with him and talked to him a lot about the game. They are obviously both doing extremely well with the players that they are with. Hopefully in the future they will be able to work with some of the better British players. Q. When you're playing against someone you know and like Gilles, does that bring a different dynamic on the court, or when you're out there do you totally block that out? ANDY MURRAY: No, not really. It may be a bit different. Jamie has been in the box because he's come to sit in my box and watch matches and stuff and support me. It's more of that. I mean, I know Gilles very, very well, and I like him, but we are not extremely close friends but I get on well with him. No, I have played a number of guys like that on the tour, players that I have known since I was very young, and it doesn't change anything for me. Q. In terms of your own coaching situation, you have Jonas back with you this week. Is that working as seamlessly as you hoped it would? ANDY MURRAY: If it wasn't, I wouldn't tell you guys. (Laughter.) Yeah, it started well. You know, I know him from when we were back when he was playing on the tour, so I know him pretty well. So it's a lot quicker to understand each other's personalities and stuff than it was maybe with Amélie or with Ivan because I didn't know either of them at all when I started with them. So it's been good. All of these relationships, they always take a bit of time to start, you know, before you start to see the benefits of working together. You need to spend time consistently with a coach before you really start to make those improvements. So, you know, I have always said that with all of the new coaches I have worked with, I just give it a little bit of time, we will see, but I get on well with him. He gets on very well with the team. He's obviously very knowledgeable about the game, as well. Q. You had a wrist injury a few years ago. You know what it's like to come back from that. What do you think it will be like for Laura coming back after such a long absence? ANDY MURRAY: I'd imagine it would be very tough, you know, for a number of reasons. You know, obviously playing at the elite level or top level of any sport is hard in the best of times, but when you haven't played for 17 months, obviously she's going to be extremely rusty, probably be lacking confidence in movement, body. You know, there is a lot of mental sort of baggage that she will have to deal with when she comes back. But, you know, I don't know if she works with someone on that front, but, you know, if she can get over that, that hurdle and trust her body, which is not going to come like overnight, it's going to take some time and some matches. She's an unbelievably talented girl ‑‑woman, sorry, now. I have known her since she was about 14, 15. And, yeah, she has a lot of potential. So, you know, she trains hard, surrounds herself with the right people, and, you know, does all the right things. She can have a fantastic career, I'm sure, but it's going to take time for her to come back from this, and it's not going to ‑‑if somehow she does do it quickly, that would be obviously awesome, but I wouldn't expect that. Q. Two questions, if you don't mind. One, it's been quite a time for you to come in here for press. Are you okay? Is there any injury issue at all? ANDY MURRAY: No. I just, when you start changing surface and stuff, you get sore in different places. It's very important that after the matches‑‑ you know, because after the first match I felt okay. After doubles yesterday I felt a little bit stiff and stuff, you know, lower back and the backs of the legs. Yeah, today I just wanted to make sure, go over everything with my physio so that they understand exactly what it is I'm feeling and then get all of the right treatment and my warmdowns and stuff done and eat properly, because I want to recover well. I'm going to play every single day now till the end of the tournament. It's a bit different at slams. You have more time to recover, whereas here, when you're changing surfaces and only having sometimes less than 24 hours, you need to, you know, to have your priorities right and get my body in the right place for the rest of the tournament. It's the most important thing just now. Q. Secondly, there is a bit of a patent developing here with the real big servers making their mark. Gilles hit I think 37 aces. Raonic is blasting them. Isner and Feliciano are knocking each other into oblivion out there at the moment. A few years ago, there was a couple of tournaments here where there was the likes of Greg and Goran and Stich and people like that. People were saying it ceases to become that much of entertainment when it's just ace, ace, ace, ace. Is the court playing faster this year? Have you noticed it faster? What are your thoughts on the ace wars? ANDY MURRAY: I think that normally at the end of the tournament like Saturday/Sunday, it normally starts to get quicker obviously as we play on and there is more matches. Normally this week the weather is pretty good. But I was speaking to the groundsmen, and normally at the start of the tournament here, you see a lot of guys slipping the first couple of days. The court is very lush. That's not the case at all. It's a lot drier this year, and therefore I think the court is harder and playing a bit quicker from the beginning of the tournament compared with the usual. Yeah, maybe a lot of those big servers will have actually also spent quite a lot of time on the grass. I don't think any of them did so well at the French, so, you know, maybe with a little bit more time for them to prepare, you know, the returning a bit better. Obviously all of them serve well, but they have got through some matches. Gilles got through a very tough one in the first round against Youzhny. And, yeah. You know, I don't enjoy watching it as much as I would enjoy, you know, more rallies, but I'm not against having quicker courts. I prefer watching matches on quicker courts rather than ones that are so slow. For the players and their health, it's better long term to have some tournaments on quicker courts. Q. If you could have a shot from any other player on the tour, what would it be and why? Like a serve, backhand? ANDY MURRAY: Probably would be Isner's serve, I think. I mean, it makes the game a whole lot easier when you can serve like that. But, I mean, there is a bunch of guys that serve unbelievably well, but I think his first and second serve are ‑‑ probably that package is probably the best on the tour. Yeah, I would say that. Q. Could you just sum up your performance today? ANDY MURRAY: I thought it was fine. I mean, it wasn't perfect, but I felt like, you know, I dug myself out of a few difficult situations when I was behind on my serve. Especially in the second set, you know. Played some good points there, you know, a few aces, like right in the, you know, the right spots, you know, a few onto the line at big moments. And then, yeah, I felt like I maybe, whether I raised my game or it was my intensity at the end of the sets, I felt I played a little bit better when I needed to there. But I will definitely need to make sure I start, I think, a bit sharper than I have in the last couple of matches, because I played a couple of sloppy service games early on. When you start playing against the big servers, you can't really afford that. Q. Some coaches, when they sit beside the court, are very intense, kind of lots of pumping of the fist. I haven't really watched Jonas until today. I thought he looked quite relaxed and nonchalant. Do you have a view on what you can expect from your coaches' body language when you look to the side of the court like that? ANDY MURRAY: I think all players would want to see their coaches looking confident, but, you know, concentrated on the match, as well. I mean, it's not always about, you know, fist pumping and bluffing, in a way. Yeah, just, you know, a lot of the coaches I have been ‑‑like Ivan, he barely said a word during matches, you know, which obviously in certain situations is fantastic and you want your coach to be calm. But then, you know, there can be sometimes, you know, maybe, you know, in a smaller event if you're also a bit flat yourself that you need some geeing up or need to be pumped up a bit by your team. My physical treater, Matt Little, is very vocal at the side, and he's normally the one that kind of leads that side of things, anyway. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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