Andy Murray on Fast Shanghai Courts – “The Conditions are Very Very Different”

Former World Number one, Andy Murray came back from a set down to claim his first ATP Masters 1000 win in two years and the Briton feels that the courts of Shanghai are faster than Beijing.

He arrived in Shanghai after losing to the eventual champion, Dominic Thiem in the quarterfinals of China Open 2019 and pertaining to that he did not get enough time to practice on the Shanghai surface. “The conditions are very, very different to the last two weeks,” Andy Murray said. “The courts are playing much, much faster and arriving fairly late from Beijing, I didn’t get a lot of time to get used to it.”

Nevertheless, the three-time Grand Slam champion, Andy Murray enjoys playing on the challenging court at the Chinese Masters event. He is looking forward to starting his next match against World Number 12, Fabio Fognini. This year, Fognini is one of the contenders in the race to London.

“I always enjoy playing here, I like the faster conditions but it’s tricky. Since I’ve come back to play, these are by far the fastest conditions that I’ve played in. I struggled a little bit with that early on with my movement. It was nice to be back playing here again, nice to get the win and hopefully start the next match a little bit quicker,” Murray added.

On Monday, Andy Murray defeated the French Open 2019 pre-quarterfinalist, Juan Ignacio Londero 2-6, 6-2, 6-3 in the opening round of Shanghai Rolex Masters 2019.

“Juan had obviously played a couple matches in the qualifiers and he was timing the ball really nicely at the beginning and I was sort of backing off the baseline and letting him dictate. I had to start going for my shots a little bit more, started being a bit more aggressive on the return and taking his time away a little bit,” he said.