Andy Murray and Scottish tennis

[marats]

We all hope Marat wins a few tournaments !
And if it's possible a GS !!
Alway's support you Marat !!

[ornthree]

he has got a loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong future!!!!

[SAFINNO1]

Murray to open against qualifier

Andy Murray will open his 2006 campaign against a qualifier at the Adelaide International, with Lleyton Hewitt a possible quarter-final opponent.
If he wins his first match, he will play sixth seed Tomas Berdych in the second round, after the Czech beat Agustin Calleri 6-4 6-7 6-4.

Murray, 18, will be making his competitive debut in Australia.

He said: "My goal is to reach the top 20 by the end of the year so I'm hoping to do well early in the season."

Murray finished last year as the world number 64 and British number three.

And on his first ever visit to Australia, he admits that the conditions will take some getting used to.

"I've been practising in South Africa where it was 25 degrees and now I've come here and yesterday was like the hottest day in ten years for me," he said.

Murray will take on a qualifier in the first round, with Agustin Calleri or Tomas Berdych waiting in round two and potentially Hewitt in the last eight.

"The qualifiers are supposedly the weakest in the draw but they've already got three matches under their belt and got used to the hot weather," he said.

"This is a very tough tournament and I'll have to win many matches before there is a chance of playing Hewitt."

[maryb]

A qualifier? Excellent, but he still has to take each match one at a time and not get too far ahead of himself. A match with Hewitt is still a long way off.

I'm on holiday for the first few days of the AO so I'll be glued to the couch with a few beers. (Watching all that sun gets to me ...) Hope the heat doesn't get to the boy though.

Happy new year to everyone. Fingers crossed that 2006 is good to Andy and Marat.

PS There's lots of rumours that Marat may not defend his AO title. Hope that's not the case, but if the knee is still a problem there's no point in being silly about it.

[SAFINNO1]

Rusty Murray through in Adelaide

Andy Murray survived a scare in his first match of 2006 before reaching the Adelaide International second round.
The 18-year-old Scot lost the first set to Italian qualifier Paolo Lorenzi but hit back to win 3-6 6-0 6-2.

He will next face Czech sixth seed Tomas Berdych, who beat Argentine Agustin Calleri, with Lleyton Hewitt a potential opponent in the next round.

Top seed Hewitt struggled past unseeded Jan Hernych of the Czech Republic 4-6 6-2 6-4.

Second seed Dominik Hrbaty saw off Rameez Junaid 6-3 7-5, while former Wimbledon and US Open finalist Mark Philippoussis also made a winning return to action.

The Australian, down to number 172 in the world after injury and bad form, beat American Vince Spadea 6-4 3-6 6-4.

Philippoussis was granted a wildcard entry to the tournament, but Murray's rapid rise means he no longer requires them, and will go straight into the draw for the Australian Open later this month.

Murray has made reaching the top 20 his goal for 2006, and he begins the year ranked 64th by the ATP.

"I worked very, very hard in South Africa and for three weeks before that, and now I feel that when I walk on court I will know that I really couldn't have done much more to prepare," Murray said.

"It has been great, as it has been the first time that I have had the chance to have a solid training block like that. But I know that people will probably still question my fitness.

"I don't have any ranking points to defend for the first few weeks of the year so if I do well then I think that I can reach the top 20 by year's end.

"This year the goal is to win the big matches because if I'm going to get into the top 20 then I have to do well at the grand slams and the Masters Series tournaments."

[Annie]

Murray wins match, loses crowd support with comments

January 9, 2006


AUCKLAND, New Zealand (AP) -- Scottish teenager Andy Murray won his first-round match at the $430,000 Heineken Open on Monday, but stirred controversy by saying he and his opponent had "played like women."

The 18-year-old Murray made the comment in a courtside interview immediately after his 7-5, 6-2 win over Kenneth Carlsen of Denmark, a player 14 years older than Murray.

Spectators booed loudly when Murray said "we were both playing like women" in a first set in which there were seven breaks of serve.

Murray look startled by the angry crowd response, gathered his thoughts and strongly criticized his own performance before leaving the court to polite applause.

[jewell]

Yeah, I read about that. He tried to backtrack by saying he was just repeating a comment Svetlana Kuznetsova made.

Do you think Murray can beat Ancic?

[Annie]

I think he can. Mario is a weird player...I could never understand him, I admire him one day and then go like "ermm what is this guy doing?" the other....I think with a right motivation and drive Andy could beat Ancic

[Annie]

well too bad Andy...well done Mario

WELLINGTON, Jan 11 (Reuters) - British teenager Andy Murray blew a second set lead to lose 6-3 7-6 to Croatia's Mario Ancic in the second round of the Auckland Open on Wednesday.

Murray was leading 5-3 in the second set but a double fault gave his Croatian opponent an opening and the world number 21 took full advantage to progress to the last eight.

"I don't normally let leads like that slip away," Murray told reporters. "I had chances. He is obviously a very good player and has a lot of experience."

Ancic, a Wimbledon semi-finalist, was impressed with what he saw of Murray.

"It was a very tough second round draw and it could have gone either way," he said.

"I was a little bit rough with my game in the second set, but I came back well. I think it was a good match for the crowd.

"From 5-3 I played much more aggressively. I started to win points by myself, not waiting for his mistakes."

Sixth seed Olivier Rochus of Belgium beat Czech qualifier Jan Hernych 6-1 7-5 to set up a quarter-final against Spanish second seed David Ferrer, who beat Dutchman Raemon Sluiter 6-4 6-3.

Seventh seed Jarkko Nieminen of Finland beat American Paul Goldstein 6-4 6-3 while Switzerland's Stanislas Wawrinka beat Alberto Martin of Spain 6-2 6-2.

[maryb]

Read Andy's comments about 'playing like women'. Know what he meant, but it didn't come out quite the right way. Think the crowd gave him a bit of a hard time. ;D

Ahh. The inexperience of youth. He'll soon learn to keep wise counsel.

Have to say, it made me laugh.

[Annie]

lol mary, I had a good giggle, too ;D

[maryb]

Just got back from a birthday break up North in Pitlochry and catching up with the first day's play of the AO. Timmo is out - what happened to his concentration in the 4th set? Jings, I blushed watching that set. 6 in a row out the window. Oh dear.

Andy, the boy, is on at about 4am this morning. Cripes. Need to set the alarm a bit earlier. Juan Ignacio Chela. Judging by the crowd when he played Hewitt last year, Chela ain't gonna be a favourite son. Excellent. ;D

Keep the heid Andy! One match at a time.

PS I'm walking on air. I was asked by a barman if I was old enough to drink (40th birthday). Only I could find the lone, blind, senile barman in Pitlochry.

Another PS
FACT: Over 6,300 salmon leaped through the Pitlochry fish dam last year. I need to tie a few flies and get my rod out of the cupboard.

Yip, I need to get a life.

The AO will keep me going for a fortnight. Hopefully Andy will give me cause for celebration. A 4th round exit will suffice. Any wins will do his ranking no harm between now and Wimbles.

[Annie]

Sorry Mary but your Andy is out in straight sets....totally horrible game, didn't do anything...oh well, one of those days I suppose

[ruth]

But at least he started to play more like he expects to play in the third set. He's got his first experience of AO as part of the main tour over with now, so the next time it can only get better. Thank goodness you can only ever have a first time once!

[SAFINNO1]

Beaten Murray hits back at media

Andy Murray has claimed the media are putting too much pressure on him, following his Australian Open exit.
Murray lost in straight sets to Juan Ignacio Chela in the first round.

"If you guys (the media) expect me to play well every single match and every single tournament then it's not going to happen," the 18-year-old Scot said.

"You guys are expecting me to win matches like this. The guy's ranked 20 places in front of me, he is a much better player than me."

Murray's 6-1 6-3 6-3 defeat by Chela came a day after fellow Briton Tim Henman fell to Dmitry Tursunov.

But the teenager admitted feeling the weight of expectation at the Vodafone Arena.

"Everybody has a bad tournament sometime. Unfortunately, it came here," he added.

"It's difficult for me to go out there and try to perform to the best that I can when I'm expected to win all these matches."

After making the biggest jump of any player in 2005 as he surged from world number 514 to number 65 by the end of the year, Murray has been touted as a future champion.

"You don't think there's any pressure on me?" Murray answered after it was suggested in the media conference that he has received nothing but good press since he arrived on the circuit.

"Well, if you don't think that, then I'm obviously going to disagree on something.

"If you guys don't think you're putting pressure on me, then that's fine. I'll forget about it."