Andy Murray plays with a metal hip after career-saving surgery (Picture: Getty)
Andy Murray admits he ‘wasn’t expecting’ to play so badly in his first-round Miami Open exit to Serbian world No.76 Dusan Lajovic in straight sets.
The British tennis legend, ranked world No.52, was expected to win his opening clash at the second event of the Sunshine Double but lost 4-6 5-7 in Miami.
Murray, 35, who plays with a metal hip after career-saving surgery, has been on somewhat of a resurgence and reached the Qatar Open final last month.
The two-time Wimbledon champion, who has won three Grand Slams in total, has now explained what went wrong in his surprising first-round loss to Lajovic.
‘I served pretty well, but the rest of the game was a bit of a problem today,’ Murray told the ATP Tour website.
‘[I] didn’t really return that well, made a number of errors that obviously I wouldn’t expect to be making.
‘I didn’t really feel like I moved particularly well, which is really important for me, something I’ve been doing very well actually in most of the matches this year.
‘So that was probably the thing. Some days you obviously don’t hit the ball your best, but my movement wasn’t great today.
‘I’d been practising pretty well. It’s a very different court here, very bouncy, much faster than [Indian Wells]. Very different to the practice courts and everything.
‘The ball was bouncing up a bit higher and I just miss-timed quite a few balls.
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‘Sometimes on the slice it was shooting through a little bit more, kind of shanked a couple shots off the slice, as well… I wasn’t expecting to play like that, even based on the last few days because I’ve been decent in practice.’
Murray’s exit capped a miserable day for British players, with Kyle Edmund and WTA star Emma Raducanu also crashing out in the first round.
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‘It’s a very different court here, very bouncy…’