London [UK], July 8 : Despite pushing World No. 5 Stefanos Tsitsipas to the brink in the second round of the ongoing Wimbledon 2023, two-time champion Andy Murray is taking no consolation from Friday's five-set defeat.
Trailing overnight, Stefanos Tsitsipas completed a thrilling turnaround victory on Friday at the ongoing Wimbledon 2023 when he stormed past Murray 7-6(3), 6-7(2), 4-6, 7-6(3), 6-4.
"I'm obviously very disappointed just now. You never know how many opportunities you're going to get to play here. The defeats may feel a bit tougher. But to be honest, every year that Wimbledon's not gone how I would like, it's been hard," Murray said in his post-match press conference as stated by ATP.com.
The 36-year-old Murray boasted results from this season that demonstrated his ability to compete with the greatest players in the world when he arrived at the All England Club.
In Surbiton and Nottingham last month, Murray won back-to-back ATP Challenger Tour championships on grass. The Scot then made his first appearance in the Top 40 of the Pepperstone ATP Rankings since 2018.
Murray lost his chance to beat the fifth seed Tsitsipas at Wimbledon, where he was hoping to advance to the third round for just the second time since 2017. The Greeks led their Lexus ATP Head2Head series 2-1 after hitting 90 wins. Murray did not find it surprising that he was so competitive with one of the top-seeded in the competition.
"I certainly could have beaten him today or yesterday. I obviously earlier in the year had a great win against Berrettini... It's clearly based on how the match went. There are only a few points in it today, it's not just about winning the odd match against them. To have a run at these tournaments, you need multiple wins in a row. I've obviously not done that," Murray said after the defeat.
When play was called off for the day at 10:38 p.m. on Thursday, the 46-time tour-level champion Murray was up two sets to one against Tsitsipas. The match was called off because it was highly improbable that it would be finished before the curfew of 11 p.m. The three-time major champion does not believe that the outcome was changed when the match was suspended and resumed on Friday.
"It seemed like a reasonable time to stop. You never know what would have happened, the same result could have happened. We knew that we were only going to be able to play until 11. You're kind of playing [against] time," Murray said.
"I didn't necessarily think it was appropriate to keep going because it was highly unlikely we would finish the match unless someone was to win the set. It was unlikely someone was going to win that set in 20 minutes or 19 minutes, whatever we had left to play. We knew the situation going into the match. That's how it was," said the two-time champion.
Murray has had some magical moments at Wimbledon, where he has a 61-13 record and has won the title twice. At the London 2012 Summer Olympics, the Glasgow native also won a gold medal in SW19. The former World No. 1 is sad that he was unable to delight the home audience with a five-set triumph on Friday evening.
"Obviously it's brilliant to play in great atmospheres. It makes playing the matches more enjoyable and creates certainly better memories," Murray said. "Ultimately this was an opportunity for me. I had a good chance of having a proper run for the first time in a long time at a slam. I didn't take it.
"Regardless of the atmosphere and those things, it's still very, very disappointing to be sitting here right now. I don't plan to stop right now, but this one will take a little while to get over. Hopefully [I will] find the motivation again to keep training, keep pushing, try and keep getting better. Motivation is obviously a big thing. Continuing having early losses in tournaments like this doesn't necessarily help with that," Murray also said.
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