After losing in the second round of the Wimbledon 2023 Championships, Andy Murray has his eyes on a better show at the upcoming US Open 2023 Championships. As a result, he has opted to participate in the Citi Open in Washington, with his first men’s singles match scheduled for Wednesday. Murray participated in a press conference prior to the start of the tournament where he answered a variety of questions.
Two of those questions centered around the Wimbledon final between Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz. Murray was seen in the stands, watching the final on Centre Court. The British star claimed that he is glad that he stayed for the match and actually learnt a lot from it, more than he had expected.
Andy Murray learns from Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic
Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic played in a final that lasted nearly 4 and a half hours with many ebbs and flows, with the World No.1 eventually prevailing in 5 sets in front of a packed Centre Court crowd that was largely cheering on for him. For Andy Murray, it was quite a unique experience watching the match from the stands as he is someone who is more used to being and playing on court. In fact, Murray hadn’t planned for watching the final at the venue but it happened that he had time in hand after finishing some commitments there that day.
As the match went on, Murray was so intrigued that he took videos of both the players when it comes to their return positions and movements between shots played, for example. He also filmed Alcaraz and understood patterns of times when he played offensive as well as defensive tennis. The 2013 and 2016 Wimbledon men’s singles champion revealed that both the players had many moments of stress and frustration in the match and many a times, when the match is watched on TV, their immediate reactions or those from the crowd when a point is completed, isn’t actually shown.
Consequently, Murray said that the experience was so enjoyable that he would again watch a match in the stands rather than on television preferably. He was quoted as saying in the press conference –
“I learned a lot from watching, and I think, yeah, probably something like looking back, wish I had maybe done a little bit more of. It’s not always that easy to do and sit in the stands.
“The end of the match, last couple of sets, I thought some of the tennis was brilliant. It was really hard conditions that day.
“Then, yeah, obviously as the match went on I thought they both played better and better. You could also sort of see Alcaraz learning, like, as the match was going on, as well. It could have gone either way, to be honest. It was so tight. Yeah, I’m glad I stayed for it.
“The thing that’s interesting I think as well is like, you know, when I was sitting there like I was also looking like a little bit at the teams and looking at seeing the players and their reactions between the points.
“When you’re just watching on the TV they often cut, not all of the time, but a lot of the time, it’s people in the crowd or the guy that’s just won the point and you don’t see those immediate reactions as well.
“So I think seeing the frustration was there, but then also, you know, how they were responding to that as well was interesting.
“Yeah, it was good. I’m really glad I stayed to watch it. You know, will probably try and do that a little bit more, try and watch a little bit more from the side of the court and watching live rather than just doing it on the TV.”
Murray calls for equal pay
In the same press conference, Andy Murray also spoke about the importance of pay parity in tennis when it comes to men and women. At the Washington Open, the men’s singles winner will take home $353,000 while the women’s singles winner will win $120,000. This has caused an outrage in the tennis community, making many question the workings of the ATP and WTA Tours. Responding to it, Murray said,
“Yeah, so, I’m totally behind equal prize money, and I think that it is brilliant that a lot of the tournaments on the tour that we have that, and I think that’s really, really positive.
“I think it is difficult for it ever to become truly equal until the ATP and the WTA sort of actually combine and work together. That’s my feeling, because I don’t know what the, you know, like what the threshold for tournaments is, like to become a 500 on the ATP Tour, if the ATP will have their set of rules as to what levels they need to reach from a prize money perspective, and I’m sure the WTA have their own.
“Yeah, like I always felt like when we’re competing at the same event on the same courts, you know, that we should be playing for, you know, for the same prize money. But I think for it ever to become like truly equal, the WTA and the ATP are actually going to have to come together and work as one before that’s the case, because I don’t think it’s that straightforward just now, you know, that both tours have different sponsors, different TV deals, and all of that stuff too.
“There is a few things that still need to change, but I feel like things are going in the right direction, like with the move to, you know, to this event becoming a 500 for both. Yeah, can obviously still get better.”
