Andy Murray was one of the tennis stars present in the crowd at Centre Court when Carlos Alcaraz defeated Novak Djokovic in an epic final at Wimbledon last month. Murray was the last man to beat Djokovic on the Centre Court in 2013 to be crowned men's singles champion. Since then, Djokovic has been unbeaten at this venue in 45 matches, until Alcaraz stopped the Serb’s astounding run in 2023. Murray has now revealed that he got to learn a lot from the 2023 final.
“I learned a lot from watching, and I, 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 and watch matches because, well, most of the people in there are tennis fans and it can be distracting. But in the final, like in the times where I got to just sit and watch the match and wasn’t so chatty and everything, I felt like I learned a lot from watching those two,” Murray said during a press conference ahead of the Washington Open.
World number one Carlos Alcaraz sustained a gruelling final match of 4 hours 43 minutes to edge past defending champ Novak Djokovic. The 23-time Grand Slam winner started the match on a promising note having won the first set quite comfortably. Alcaraz bounced back in a resounding fashion to win the next two sets. Djokovic showcased his steely mindset to win the penultimate set and force the thrilling summit clash into its final set. Alcaraz held his nerves in the last set to get the better of Djokovic. Recalling the nail-biting final encounter, Andy Murray said that the match could have gone either way.
“The end of the match, last couple of sets, some of the tennis was brilliant. It was really hard conditions that day. It was very blustery, and so the start maybe wasn’t as clean, but that was more because of the conditions. Then, obviously as the match went on, they both played better and better. You could also sort of see Alcaraz learning as the match was going on. It could have gone either way. It was so tight,” Murray explained.
{{/usCountry}}“The end of the match, last couple of sets, some of the tennis was brilliant. It was really hard conditions that day. It was very blustery, and so the start maybe wasn’t as clean, but that was more because of the conditions. Then, obviously as the match went on, they both played better and better. You could also sort of see Alcaraz learning as the match was going on. It could have gone either way. It was so tight,” Murray explained.
{{/usCountry}}Andy Murray did take part in Wimbledon 2023 but the three-time Grand Slam winner could not go past the second round this time. Murray defeated his fellow countryman Ryan Peniston 6-3, 6-0,6-1 in the first round. In the second round, Murray had to concede a 7-6, 6-7, 6-4, 6-7, 4-6 defeat at the hands of Greek opponent Stefanos Tsitsipas.
Murray is now all set to feature in the Washington Open. The 15th-seeded Brit earned a bye in the first round of the ATP 500 event.