“I’m not really enjoying it right now” – Furious, frustrated Murray desperately seeking positivity

After a sixth successive defeat to Alex de Minaur – which included a quintet of racquet smashes and two failures to serve out the match – Andy Murray spoke to reporters at the Rolex Paris Masters and revealed that he was struggling to find enjoyment in tennis.

“It’s frustrating,” Murray said. “I’m not really enjoying it just now, I would say, in terms of how I feel on the court and how I’m playing. The past five, six months haven’t been that enjoyable, which doesn’t help things, so I need to try and [get] some of that enjoyment back because playing a match like that, there’s not really much positivity there.

Read also

Paris Masters: De Minaur saves match point, comes from 5-2 down in third to beat Murray yet again

Tennis Majors

“When I play a good point, I’m not really getting behind myself and then, in the important moments, that will to win and fight that has always been quite a big, big part of my game [is not there]. What happened today, I don’t remember it happening before. Those sorts of situations have happened quite a lot this year, and that’s not really me. It’s not enjoyable.”

Murray: I’m going to need a lot of work

The 36-year-old is, however, not planning to retire quite yet, although media reports in the UK are suggesting that his working relationship with Ivan Lendl may be drawing to a close once more. The Czech has not been seen at a tournament with Murray since the US Open in August.

“The results are ultimately my performance,” said Murray. “But also, if I want to keep going, I’m going to need a lot of work. It’s not like the off-season or whatever, it’s not just going to be like one or two weeks of training to get me to where I need to get to, it’s going to have to be a lot of work and consistent work to give myself a chance of getting back to where I want to be.

“I’ve just not been improving in the areas that I feel like I need to. You play a three-hour match on a fast indoor court and I’m not really getting loads of free points on my serve. It’s quite an important part of the game now. Lots of the guys are serving big, getting a lot of free points and it used to be something I could rely on quite a lot. I’m not doing that now.”

It was notable that Murray also reflected on how frustrating he was also finding his training sessions, which was carrying over into matches.

“Rather than when I’m on the court competing and it just being about, ‘Let’s try to get the win over the guy in front of you,’ I’m spending a lot of time focusing on myself, how I’m feeling, how my shots are and I’m just getting extremely frustrated with that. It’s not a great place to be on the court.”

You might also like this

“I’d love to play another”: Murray on his unfinished business at the Olympics

tennis majors

“If I’d have cramped, it probably would have been curtains”: Andy Murray on the 2013 Wimbledon final

tennis majors

Questions around how the final chapter of Andy Murray’s career will play out remain as pertinent as ever

tennis majors