Out of Shanghai

07 October, 2009 | 23:10

Due to medical advice Andy will not be travelling to China. He has decided to give his wrist extra time to recover and is likely to return for the Valencia Open.

http://www.andymurray.com/news/article/854

Pioline o Murrayu: Andy czuje wielką presję podczas turniejów WS.

On Andy Murray: I think he is feeling the pressure of a Slam. Everybody is saying – and they are right – that he is a real potential winner. He is feeling the pressure. But it is going to be difficult. The French Open on clay will definitely be his worse surface and at Wimbledon there is a lot of pressure because everyone is expecting him to win the tournament. And then you’re just left with two other tournaments. Before the US Open, I thought he was the closest of the non-Grand Slam winners to winning one next. Then Del Potro did it. When you look at him over the past three years, each year he is improving. He is very consistent – except maybe in the Slams. He has to improve that.

http://alexkayblog.dailymail.co.uk/

Interview: Andy Murray talks about his childhood hero, Andre Agassi

Andy Murray says that he will remember Andre Agassi for what he did on the tennis court, not the revelations about 
drug-taking and lying to the ATP over a failed drugs test.

The world No.4 is in Valencia chasing a sixth title of the year after six weeks off the tour because of the left wrist injury he aggravated on Davis Cup duty in September when, despite two wins, he was unable to stop Britain from being relegated to the third tier of the competition.

Murray is the top seed in Valencia but yesterday he turned his attention to the revelations of Agassi that have emerged from extracts from his forthcoming book: Open – An Autobiography. In it, the American admits that he took crystal meth and failed a drugs test in 1997, only to then lie to the ATP about how the drug got into his system to (successfully) avoid a ban.

In the latest extracts from the book, revealed at the weekend, Agassi says he believes he was fed “speed” by his father in the early stages of his career, believing the pills to have been caffeine.

As a child learning the game, Murray idolised Agassi and yesterday he said he judged him only as a tennis player. “I loved Andre, met him numerous times and he was unbelievably nice to me,” said Murray, who begins his title bid here tomorrow. “I practised with him quite a lot. I guess it’s something he has to deal with himself, he’s entitled to say whatever he wants and I wish him the best.

“I don’t really want to get into it. I don’t think any of the players expected it, but you’ve just got to move on. I judge him as a tennis player; he was great, a great player, one of the best of all time. From the experiences I have had with him, he’s been nice to me. No-one wants drugs in sport but everyone makes mistakes.”

Murray said he could not compare the way the ATP, which runs the men’s tour, dealt with drugs when Agassi failed his test, with how they do it now, but said he did not believe tennis was rife with drug-taking.

“I didn’t play in those times so I don’t know what it was like,” he said. “There’s even cases now where guys get off, you know, with failed tests and contaminations, mistakes with the [Richard] Gasquet case. [Gasquet tested positive for cocaine but saw his ban reduced after convincing an independent panel that the substance had entered his system through a kiss with a waitress].

“Sometimes things like that happen and people get away with it. But I just don’t think drugs in tennis is a big problem, like it is in other sports.”

http://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/oth … i-1.929882

Świetnie, będą jakieś specjalne kolekcje pod AM

Z tego co wiem to Montanesa 6-4 6-2 ogral

Wymiata. To już 6 tytuł w tym roku Szkota. W Szlemach bieda, ale te "mniejsze" turnieje to Jego prawdziwe Królestwo.

Ten puchar maryja wygląda jakby był plastikowy bardzo ładny za to Nole dostał za Basel.

Udany powrót Szkota to idealny moment, by Reed wyszedł z nory. Simon napisał, że Murray to obecnie najlepszy grajek świata i Jego zdaniem, wygra Masters Cup w Londynie. Gdzie byłeś po 4 rundzie USO, Simon ?

jaccol55 napisał:

Że ktoś jeszcze zaprząta Nim sobie głowę...

Trudno tak przejść obok Jak kiedyś Panicz podniesie Puchar za turniej WS to wtedy będziemy mieli podwójną koronację: Reeda na dziennikarza tenisowego wszech czasów

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/ … 911611.ece

Andy Murray says he is 'under no pressure'

They were measuring up the best players in the men’s game yesterday for the outfits — the details of which are secret — that they will be wearing when unveiled in London next week as the pride of their sport.

Andy Murray’s second experience of this elevated status comes as he contemplates a year in which he filled out as a high-class performer. Of course, nothing would give him greater pleasure than to win the eight-man Barclays ATP World Tour Finals at the O2 arena in southeast London, starting a week on Sunday. Although he said that “there’s no pressure, no expectations”, his approach to the roundrobin match he did not have to win against Roger Federer in the equivalent finale in Shanghai last year suggests that such colourless appraisal should be treated with a pinch of salt.

The fourth-day card for the BNP Paribas Masters in Paris today renders what happened on the first three largely window dressing. Federer, Murray, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Juan Martín del Potro take to the quickened floor of the Palais Omnisports to fine-tune their games with 13 days of the tour to go. There is a sense of wanting to get on with it while waiting for the year to end.

Federer and Murray are the best rested, Nadal’s eagerness requires a cork to contain it, Djokovic is characteristically on edge and Del Potro is looking to justify his breakthrough success at the US Open two months ago.

It was asked of the British No 1 whether he used any part of the six weeks he has spent resting his injured wrist to evaluate where he was with his game. The motives for the line of inquiry were entirely positive.

“From my point of view and from the guys I’ve worked with, everyone tries to find something wrong with my game or why I haven’t won a grand slam or haven’t been No 1 in the world or whatever it is that I need to do to prove I’m a great player,” Murray, who won his comeback event in Valencia on Sunday, said.

“I don’t know what that is, but I got to No 2 this year, which I think is good; I improved my results at Wimbledon and at the French Open; won more tournaments [six] than last year. It’s been a good year and I don’t feel there’s a whole lot I need to change in my game, regardless of what some people think, and I think I’m close to winning a grand slam and I’ll give it my best shot to do that next year.

“I don’t think there’s a huge amount that I need to work on. You become better the more matches you play, the physically fitter you get — I feel like I’m a lot better player now even than I was at the beginning of this year, just from playing matches, getting used to winning more and having that consistency week in, week out.

“Throughout the whole season, there’s not been one part of it that I could say, ‘That was a big letdown; I didn’t play well there; I had a couple of bad months there.’ It’s been pretty solid the whole way through, so no complaints.”

We had none. He has a minimum of four matches left to play this year — one here and three in the round-robin at the O2 — and it would not be a surprise if he stars in at least twice that number. He beat James Blake, whom he plays in the second round in Paris today, in the final of the AEGON Championships at Queen’s Club in June, but knows that since teaming up with Kelly Jones, the American’s first change of coach since he was a junior, Blake has found some late-season zest.

The thought of missing out on the London gravy train is affecting players in different ways. Nikolay Davydenko, of Russia, in seventh spot, lost three games in his second-round match with Benjamin Becker, of Germany, and looks unstoppable, but Fernando Verdasco, the Spaniard in eighth, was a bundle of nerves in edging Andreas Seppi, of Italy, 6-7, 6-4, 6-4.

There was a rumour last night that Andy Roddick, invalided out of the Shanghai Masters last month with a knee injury, may have to withdraw from London, but the tournament organisers insisted that the Wimbledon runner-up will definitely travel.

To sightsee? We shall see.