Murray shocked by change of pace

 

Originally published on: 26/02/10 12:08

The Scot was moved onto the less-than-glamorous surroundings of Court One for his second match in the French capital this week, having dismissed Sam Querrey in some style in the main arena in Bercy last night.

“I was amazed how fast that court was, in comparison to Centre Court,” said Murray, who will face reigning champion David Nalbandian in the quarter-finals.

Murray claimed a 6-3 7-6 (8/6) win over the Spaniard to extend his stunning winning run to 14 matches, but the contest was nothing to write home about with only one break point in total, converted by the fourth seed midway through the first set. Britain’s number one felt the conditions had a large role to play in that.

He continued: “I don’t think he had a break point the whole match – he maybe once got a deuce on my serve – and I only had one break point.

“I don’t really care about the environment. It’s more the difference in speed of the courts I find it amazing.

“The ceiling is much lower and it makes the court play faster. I don’t see why there’s such a huge difference.”

Verdasco put up a predictably spirited challenge but it always looked as if Murray was playing within himself.

The difference between victory and defeat in such tight matches can boil down to a few key moments, and they all went Murray’s way.

“He kind of lost his head,” said Murray. “It doesn’t surprise me when players go nuts over line calls but here it was more about the stage of the match. It was 4-3 and 40-0, and I hadn’t been in any of his service games at all.

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