MURRAY HURRIES DESPITE WORRIES

THE ridiculous scheduling that affected Andy Murray in the early hours of yesterday is to be looked at by the ATP Tour to try to head off any repeat nocturnal encounters. The 27-year-old Scot last night swept aside Spain’s Marcel Granollers 6-2, 6-0 in the third round of the Madrid Open despite having only finished his opening match against Philipp Kohlschreiber at 3am. The pair, who only arrived in the Spanish capital after facing each other in Monday’s delayed BMW Open final in Munich, were kept waiting until 1.12am to start, due to a pile-up of three-set matches before them. Playing in a near-empty stadium, Murray eventually came through 6-4, 3-6, 6-0 after officials — headed by 76-year-old tournament director Manolo Santana, the former Spanish great — declined to move them to another court. Murray took the short turnaround between matches in his stride, but had a word of advice for competition organisers after his quickfire triumph over Granollers in 65 minutes. ‘These are the ATP’s biggest tournaments. We’re told all of the time to speak well of the tournaments,’ he said. ‘If they want to see the top players playing the best tennis, don’t have them play matches at 3 o’clock in the morning.’ ATP Tour chief executive Chris Kermode admitted it was a ‘disadvantage’ for Murray going on in the tournament. ‘The scheduling issues in Madrid were unfortunate, with players going on court past 1am at a disadvantage for the following day’s matches,’ he said. ‘It is critical that the interests of players and tournaments are protected in a balanced manner on the Tour. We will look at reducing the risk of similar instances occurring in the future.’ Murray now faces Canadian fifth seed Milos Raonic, a 6-4, 6-3 winner over Argentine Leonardo Mayer last night, in the quarter-finals.