Andy Murray lost a tight two-setter on Friday at the Infosys Hall of Fame Open, bringing his grass-court season to a close with a quarter-final defeat to Alexander Bubik. While the former World No. 1 is satisfied with some parts of his time on the surface this year, he is hungry for more.
“Obviously I just want the results to be a bit better. I felt like I had a good chance of [advancing] here. If I got through Bublik, it would have been a good opportunity potentially in the semi-finals,” Murray said. “But… to have my body feeling pretty good and getting lots of matches in is important for me.”
The 35-year-old was pursuing his first ATP Tour singles title since Antwerp in 2019. Instead of lifting the trophy, Murray settled for a quarter-final exit after reaching the final in Sydney and Stuttgart earlier in the year.
“The grass-court season as a whole there were some good moments, but also some tough ones. Today’s match and the loss at Wimbledon were disappointing and frustrating for me, but then I also had my best wins in a while in Stuttgart,” Murray said. “So a bit up and down, but a little bit of progress overall and I’ll try and keep that going through the hard-court summer.”
The good news is that Murray has already played 13 tournaments this season and not spent any significant period of time away from competitive action. The No. 52 player in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings is eager to continue searching for his best tennis.
“[I want] to continue to improve,” Murray said. “If I keep seeing progress I’ll continue to keep playing.”
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In his loss against Bublik, it was not that Murray was wiped off the court. He saved just one of the four break points he faced, and was only able to convert one of the two he earned. That made all the difference.
“It was disappointing. [The] first set came down to a couple of points and then I had a few opportunities in the second. But I thought he played a pretty solid match,” Murray said. “Generally he can be a little bit up and down, but there was really only one moment in the second set [when] he was a bit inconsistent. But for most of the match, he was solid.”
Photo Credit: Andrew Eichenholz/ATP Tour
It was nevertheless an enjoyable week for Murray, who had not competed in Newport since making the semi-finals as a 19-year-old in 2006. On Thursday, he even met Minnesota Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins, who is a big tennis fan.
“I’d never actually met any NFL athletes before, but he seemed like he loved his tennis and he was saying that he feels like a lot of the movements you make in tennis are similar to a quarterback,” Murray said. “He would prefer to do an hour of tennis to an hour of agility drills, which I can understand as you get a little bit older, trying to keep things fresh and fun in training in preseason is important.”
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