It is a feeling backed up by his ranking, which is currently No 37 and continues to gradually rise. Didn’t serve well enough.”Īsked what keeps him motivated after not making as much progress as he hoped to make, the 36-year-old said that he has continued to feel like he is still making progress.
Then the times when I did sort of get back into sets or sort of break back, I just didn’t play well enough. Murray said he simply did not play well enough: “I think I got broken at the beginning of every set so could never sort of get any scoreboard pressure, really. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.ĭimitrov survived the service game, he served out the set and went from strength to strength as he sealed the lengthy, physical match in three sets. For more information see our Privacy Policy. Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. A potential turning point came for Murray as Dimitrov served with the break at 4-3 in the second set, the Bulgarian double faulting twice to offer Murray a break point. Throughout the match, Murray struggled to impose his game and hit through the conditions along with Dimitrov’s excellent backhand slice and defence.ĭimitrov took the decisive break of the first set after a dire service game from Murray, which included two double faults and two service games, and he was soon up a set and a break after another poor game on serve from Murray to open the second set. After 47 minutes, only five games had been played.īut those tight early games eventually made way for a more one-sided contest. In the early stages of a ballistic first set, the contest had all the ingredients of a brutal, physical battle.Īfter trailing 2-0, Murray broke back after an astonishing 15-minute game that included dazzling all-court rallies and six deuces. Before the match, a smile flickered across Murray’s face as he noted that it probably was an advantage for Dimitrov to have them in his corner, but the match would be won on the court. Dimitrov now works with two of Murray’s former coaches: Dani Vallverdú, Murray’s old friend, and Jamie Delgado, who Murray worked with until 2021. Ultimately these are the events that you want to play your best tennis in, and create more great moments, and didn’t do that this year.”ĭespite the congeniality between Murray and Dimitrov, it was a match that came with some added spice. “I mean, I fought hard enough but just didn’t play well enough. “Today is obviously a really disappointing defeat and probably the manner of it as well,” he said. But Murray is yet to reach the fourth round of a major since his hip problems began in 2017. Murray performed immensely in Australia, defeating Matteo Berrettini en route to the third round of the Australian Open and then he forced Stefanos Tsitsipas, the fifth seed, to an excellent five-set battle in their second-round match at Wimbledon.
Despite pushing some top 10 opponents to the limit and compiling a 3-3 record against players ranked between 11 and 20 this year, the Scot has not been able to reach the later stages at any Masters 1000 or grand slam tournaments.
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