Andy Murray attacks ‘unprofessional’ tennis after GB’s early hours Davis Cup defeat
Andy Murray has called late-night finishes in tennis “unprofessional”, after the British Davis Cup team suffered a bitter loss to the USA in the early hours of Thursday morning.
The Glasgow crowd were forced to wait until past 10pm to see Murray make his way onto the court along with doubles partner Joe Salisbury, but the pair failed in their efforts to rescue their team’s fortunes, falling agonisingly short in a marathon three-setter which finished two minutes shy of 1am.
Play did not start at Glasgow’s Emirates Arena until 4pm on Wednesday, in an apparent effort to ensure spectators would not miss too much of the action through work or school.
But that incentive to get bums on seats was voided when a large smattering of the 7,400 crowd filtered away ahead of Murray and Salisbury’s thrilling deciding set in the final rubber.
A combination of the late afternoon start, very slow courts creating long rallies and three evenly matched ties contributed to the brutal finishing time.
‘Inappropriate’
The subject of late finishes has been a hot topic for much of this tennis season, including at Wimbledon and the US Open last week, where matches were being played past 2am. Murray, 35, said it verged on “inappropriate” for tennis to keep up this avoidable scheduling trend.
“Look, it would be better if they were earlier I think for everyone involved,” Murray said during his press conference, which started after 1.30am.
“I don’t think it’s ideal for [the media]. I don’t think it’s ideal for the fans. There’s probably half of the people in there at the end of the match that were there at the beginning. It’s a bit of a shame because, well, they missed a great match.
