Andy Murray mouthed an ominous message in his demoralising Qatar Open defeat to teenager Jakub Mensik on Wednesday. The 36-year-old’s journey to the Center East obtained off to the proper begin, beating Alexandre Muller to notch his first victory since October, however the reduction wasn’t to final lengthy.
Issues have been wanting up for Murray when he powered previous Muller in straight units on Tuesday. However he adopted that up with a loss to 18-year-old Mensik, who gained two out of three tiebreaks to guide his spot within the quarter-finals.
Murray was chasing the sport by the point he earned a break level at 5-5 within the second set. However when the veteran miscued his shot into the online, his response was telling, as he clearly mouthed: “This sport isn’t for me anymore. It isn’t for me anymore, this sport.”
Though Murray recovered to take the second-set tiebreak, he finally crashed out 6-7 7-6 6-7 in opposition to the lowly 116th-ranked teen.
Requested if there have been any positives to take from his run to the Qatar Open final 16, Murray stated: “Yeah, I believe most likely within the matches that I performed this yr, just like the one in opposition to Grigor [Dimitrov] in Brisbane, form of felt like I form of performed it the fitting manner.
“I actually did not really feel like I performed an excellent match on the Australian Open. Then, yeah, I believe the final two days there was some constructive stuff. I used to be hitting the ball a bit tougher, I used to be making an attempt to return ahead to the online and, you understand, I wasn’t the one getting pushed round on a regular basis.”
Murray, who boasts three Grand Slam titles on his CV, has chopped and adjusted between hinting at retirement and insisting he desires to play on in current months. Defeat to Tomas Martin Etcheverry at January’s Australian Open noticed him admit there was a ‘particular risk’ he could by no means play competitively in Melbourne once more.
Main as much as the Qatar Open, nevertheless, the Glasgow-born veteran insisted he’s not able to stroll away, stating: “I need to hold enjoying simply now, so I am not going to cease.”
Murray had been on a torrid run earlier than defeating Muller in Qatar. For the reason that Swiss Indoors final October, he suffered consecutive first-round defeats on the Paris Masters, the Brisbane Worldwide, the Australian Open, the Open Sud de France and the Open 13.
Hip surgical procedures in 2018 and 2019 have hampered Murray’s motion on the courtroom and he has not made it past the third spherical of a Grand Slam since preventing again to health.
