Murray: My missus must stop swearing!
Aussie fans are going wild for Sir Andy... but he says Lady Murray must cut out the swearing!
Andy Murray is taking very much the ‘Call me andy’ approach to the next fortnight, but it looks like his australian hosts might struggle to go along with it.
He was welcomed on court without his ‘Sir’ moniker, but the oncourt announcer extracted a loud cheer when he then introduced him as a ‘knight of the realm’.
after setting up a meeting with russian teenager andrey rublev, with a somewhat inauspicious 7- 5, 7- 6, 6- 2 victory over Illya Marchenko, even his watching wife Kim got dragged into it.
as part of the often cringeworthy post-match on- court interviews that they so enjoy here, he was asked if Lady Murray was happy with his new status. referring to her rare emotional outburst during his 2015 match here against Tomas Berdych he joked that there could be ‘no more swearing during my matches for those of you that saw that a few years ago’.
She had actually employed the Ivan Lendl tactic of draping a towel over the fixed mini- camera that focuses on the player guest seats, so she is unlikely to be spotted.
By the end of his match Murray could afford to laugh, having done the hard work.
Earlier he had looked stressed, repeatedly barking at his bench as he tried to get himself fired up in the debilitating heat. The 29-yearold Scot even managed to get annoyed with his water bottle at one stage, because he could not find how many millilitres it contained on the label.
rublev will be another awkward opponent. Still only 19, the former junior French Open champion has long been identified as one to watch and he gives the ball an almighty clout.
you would expect that from the son of a boxer who was a top russian amateur lightweight before the Iron Curtain came down. His mother is a tennis coach who used to put a young anna Kournikova ( remember her?) through her paces.
Murray was later intrigued to know of the background of his forthcoming opponent, ranked 152, but admitted that even with his encyclopaedic knowledge of the fight game he had never heard of his father.
rublev beat yen-Hsun Lu to make the second round and Murray may be disappointed about that in terms of an omen: he beat the Taipei player at the same stage of Wimbledon before going on to win both his SW19 titles.
It is probably fair to say that a knighthood is something that will elude dan Evans, but the 26-yearold Brummie is definitely enhancing his reputation as a serious tennis player. The British no 3 will take on seventh seed Marin Cilic in the second round after following up his Sydney International final appearance with a 7-6, 6-3, 6-1 win over argentina’s Facundo Bagnis.
Evans, who saved three set points in the 10-8 tiebreak, is not especially confident despite his recent run and the fact that Cilic needed five sets to beat Pole Jerzy Janowicz. ‘It’s going to be tough, isn’t?’ he said. ‘The likelihood is he’s probably going to win, but we’ll see what happens.
‘He obviously had a tough one today, so hopefully his body is pretty sore.’
In his last Grand Slam, the US Open, Evans was good enough to have a match point against Stan Wawrinka. ‘I guess he (Cilic) will have noticed that,’ said Evans. ‘He’ll probably be more prepared for me because of that match. I’m guessing I can cause him some trouble.’
He will be giving away around nine inches, but Evans’s run of form could at least be timely for Great Britain’s davis Cup team in their first round match against Canada in Ottawa, which comes immediately after this event.
Murray admitted there was a possibility he might not feature.
‘ The plan’s to play,’ he said. ‘Obviously I have to wait and see a little bit about how I go here. The worse I do, the better that would be for davis Cup. If I go deep here I will need to think about it. It’s a pretty tough trip if you are to finish here on the Sunday.’
aljaz Bedene would love to be available for the davis Cup and represent the country whose passport he holds as a long-time resident of Welwyn Garden City.
after a 7-6, 7-5, 0-6, 6-3 defeat by 36- year- old dominican Victor Estrella Burgos, one of the easiest draws he could have had, he admitted that he nearly quit the sport last year after his protracted application to play for Great Britain in the team competition was turned down.
‘I was just not feeling great on the court, I just wasn’t enjoying playing tennis and I thought, “What’s the point if you’re not enjoying it?”’ said the Slovenia-born player, 27. ‘I took a month off before the US Open to consider my options. I decided if I’m going to play tennis I want to enjoy it. I am excited for this year.’
Bedene is still exploring legal avenues to try to be available for Leon Smith’s team, rather than competing for GB purely as an individual.