Murray eyes Indian Wells challenge after Dubai win
dubai — Despite winning his first Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships title on Saturday night, Andy Murray said he was not sure if he could end his Indian Wells drought.
Murray has never even reached the final at the Indian Wells Masters in the past. But the three-time Grand Slam winner will definitely be the favourite in the latest edition of the Masters event which starts on Monday.
“The thing is conditions are totally different. Indian Wells, it’s very slow court with fast balls and the other way around here in Dubai, fast court with quite slow balls here,” the world number one told reporters after beating veteran Spaniard Fernando Verdasco 6-3 6-2 in the Dubai final on Saturday. “So, you know, obviously I have to get there and adjust to that. Winning this week is fantastic, obviously winning matches builds confidence. After the break that I have had to get five matches in, six if you include the doubles, in six days is a really positive thing physically. You know, I feel good. I was a bit tired yesterday after the match with (Philipp) Kohlschreiber. But, yeah, I felt a lot better today,” he added.
“So obviously it was a good start to this stretch, and like I said, trying to obviously get to Indian Wells much earlier than I did last year. Will arrive tomorrow, which is a good thing. Even though it’s a long trip, gives me five, six days to get ready before my first match.”
Murray’s amazing consistency in the last 10 months has given him his second Wimbledon and Olympic victories and the world number one ranking. Saturday’s final in Dubai was his seventh appearance in a title round in last eight tournaments.
“Yeah, it’s obviously been good. I was saying it’s unfortunate that one of my bad days came at a Slam,” Murray said referring to his shock fourth round defeat at the Australian Open last January.
“The US Open was also a disappointment. But, you know, it’s been a good run. Obviously I want to try and peak and play my best tennis at the slams, but, you know, giving yourself a lot of matches gives you confidence to go into those big events. It certainly helped me at Wimbledon last year.
“You know, maybe I went to the US Open a bit fatigued after Rio (Olympics). But it’s been a great run. I can’t complain about much.”
Finally Murray said he was impressed with the crowd here in Dubai in the 25th anniversary of the tournament.
“It’s always good here, for sure. But, you know, you play Roger (Federer) pretty much anywhere, play Roger here in Dubai, support is most likely going to be behind him,” he said
“But this week has been nice and some of the years, when I came a few years ago, like, you know, the crowd certainly weren’t as good as they were this week in terms of size. It was pretty busy the whole week from the first round, so that was good.”