Murray Criticises Disappointing Miami Open Performance

Thursday, 23 March 2023 at 23:50

Updated at Friday, 22 September 2023 at 20:52

byAlex Waite

Andy Murray gave an honest assessment of his first-round Miami Open defeat against Dusan Lajovic on Wednesday.

Murray fell to a straight-sets loss against Serbian Lajovic and the 35-year-old struggled to find any rhythm in the contest. The result came as a surprise after the veteran's strong performances at the Dubai Open and Indian Wells.

However, Murray was quick to blame his own mistakes following the defeat and he felt his game wasn't up to standard.

“I served pretty well, but the rest of the game was a bit of a problem today. Didn't really return that well, made a number of errors that obviously I wouldn't expect to be making.”

— Murray said after his Miami Open elimination

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In particular, the 35-year-old said his movement on the court was an issue during the loss. The three-time Grand Slam champion felt this was a strong point in previous matches this season.

"I didn't really feel like I moved particularly well, which is really important for me, something I've been doing very well actually in most of the matches this year. So that was probably the thing. Some days you obviously don't hit the ball your best, but my movement wasn't great today.”

Further surprise for Murray came from his ability to hit well-timed shots in the first-round defeat, especially after the Brit had trained well leading up to the tournament.

"I'd been practicing pretty well. It's a very different court here, very bouncy, much faster than last week. Very different to the practice courts and everything. The ball was bouncing up a bit higher and I just miss-timed quite a few balls. Sometimes on the slice it was shooting through a little bit more, kind of shanked a couple shots off the slice, as well… I wasn't expecting to play like that, even based on the last few days because I've been decent in practice."