ANDY Murray turns 30 later this year, an age once considered virtually past it in tennis terms but now, for an athlete at the top of his game, it means added maturity.
The downside is that the older you get the less you know about the younger brood coming up. So, when Murray plays the Russian Andrey Rublev in the second round of the Australian Open tomorrow, he will have to check out scanning YouTube for some extra background.
“It’s actually more important than before because now there are a lot of players I don’t know,” Murray said yesterday, after a harder-than-expected 7-5, 7-6, 6-2 win over Illya Marchenko of Ukraine in testing conditions with temperatures hitting 32°C.
“When I first came on the tour I literally knew everyone because I watched loads on TV when I was a kid so I knew loads of the top players or I’d grown up with players in Futures or the juniors, seen them around and I knew everyone in qualifying as well.”
Rublev earned his first grand slam win with a four-set win over Yen-Hsun Lu of Taipei.
“Now there’s a bunch of guys I don’t know because of the generation gap, so I still watch and study the guys I’m playing against because I don’t know a lot of them like I knew the previous bunch,” Murray said.
Murray will need to be sharper than he was yesterday as he opened his bid for a first title with a scratchy performance against Marchenko, who played above his world ranking of 95.
Three double faults in the first game from Murray set the tone and he muttered and ranted throughout, yelling at himself and in the direction of his box.
Having recovered from the loss of that opening service game, Murray let slip a 5-2 lead but broke again in the 12th game to clinch the opening set.
Marchenko grabbed an early break in the second but Murray hit back and after winning the tie-break, he pulled away in the third, extended to just 13 minutes short of three hours, a tough workout in tough conditions.
“Sometimes in conditions like today you can feel a bit flat energy wise just because it’s draining, you know you are trying to get through it, you need to encourage yourself to have more energy,” Murray said.
“The more energy you have the better you’ll play and finish the match off quicker. Maybe I could have had more energy, started off more energetic. I’ll try to do that the next match.”
At 19, Rublev is considered one of the most promising young players on tour, coming off an outstanding junior career, during which he won the French Open and was the world No.1.
With tough tasks ahead, Murray will be chasing a quick win but knows better than to get ahead of himself. “I’ve never hit with him but I’ve seen him play and he really goes for it, whips the ball,” Murray said. “I guess I’ll get a better idea of how good he is when we play.”
Meanwhile, Dan Evans continued his fine form with a 7-6, 6-3, 6-1 win over Facundo Bagnis of Argentina.
Next up for Evans is former US Open champion Marin Cilic, who came back from two sets down to beat Jerzy Janowicz in a decider.
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