Murray shrugs off his late shift to march on

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 finished his round-two match at 3am yesterday. He came back out on court in the evening to brush aside Marcel Granollers 6-2, 6-0 in the third round of the Madrid Open.

Murray took a mere 64 minutes to see off the Spaniard but then criticised the scheduling, saying: ‘If they want to see the top players playing the best tennis don’t have them playing at three o’ clock in the morning.

‘I felt very tired. I tried to pump myself up as much as possible for this match and bluff him to show I was feeling OK.’

In the previous round the Scot and Philipp Kohlschreiber, 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 declined to move them to another court to begin at a more civilised hour.

There was recognition of how unsatisfactory the situation was in a statement issued by ATP Tour chief executive Chris Kermode, and the admission it was a ‘disadvantage’ for Murray going on in the tournament.

‘The scheduling issues in Madrid were unfortunate,’ said Kermode. ‘We will look at reducing the risk of similar instances occurring in the future.’

Murray now plays Milos Raonic in the quarter-final.

Veteran Australian coach Bob Brett is set to keep his job as player development director at the Lawn Tennis Association but a new post of performance director is expected to be created.