"Disappointing and frustrating for me" - Murray following Newport loss to Bublik
ATP
Andy Murray wanted to show his grass-court qualities at the 2022 Newport Open, but he lost to Alexander Bublik in the quarter-finals of the tournament, and he was frustrated after the match.
The draw opened up nicely for the experienced Brit as the first-seeded Felix Auger-Aliassime lost in the second round of the tournament. Therefore, his possible semi-final opponent was the ATP World No. 102 player, Jason Kubler.
However, Murray first needed to defeat the very dangerous Alexander Bublik, and he couldn't do it. The Kazakhstani player was better than him in their quarter-final meeting, winning 7-5, 6-4.
After the match, Murray was disappointed about the loss, as he felt that if he got past Bublik he could have made it to the final at the ATP 250 tournament.
"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. But… to have my body feeling pretty good and getting lots of matches in is important for me."
Murray knows that the grass-court part of the season is the time when he can shine. Even if his injury struggles, he still has much more experience on the surface than the vast majority of the Tour.
"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."
"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."
Murray doesn't want to think about his retirement at the moment. As long as he feels competitive on the tennis court, the three-time major winner wants to continue playing.
"[I want] to continue to improve. If I keep seeing progress I’ll continue playing. 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. 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."
