Murray hits out at late-night scheduling

Defending champion races into US Open second round.

NEW YORK:

Defending champion Andy Murray hit out at the late-night US Open scheduling which he described as ‘not ideal’ after he raced into the second round.

Third-seeded Murray needed just 98 minutes to get past 33-year-old Frenchman Michael Llodra, 6-2, 6-4, 6-3.

But the match was the third-latest ever start for a US Open night session after a four-hour rain suspension earlier in the day caused havoc with the schedule.

As a result, Murray found himself playing his opener 48 hours after second seed, and leading title favorite, Rafael Nadal.

“I think playing at that time for your first round is not ideal,” said Murray.

“Just because I won last year, it’s nothing to do with that. It’s just for the guys that have to play this evening, and you have guys that have two days off between matches.”

Meanwhile, Venus Williams is going to have a lot more time to prepare for her upcoming tournaments in Asia than she really wanted, thanks to one of Asia’s top players.

China’s Zheng Jie advanced to the third round of the tournament by outlasting seven-time Grand Slam champion Venus 6-3, 2-6, 7-6 (7/5) after three hours and two minutes.

“I had a lot of opportunities in the match, but I am just not playing consistently enough,” said Venus. “I just dug myself into so many holes the whole match. I just fought as hard as I could to get out of them, but it wasn’t enough.”

Published in The Express Tribune, August 30^th, 2013.

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