Murray Looks Exhausted - Annabel Croft

Andy Murray looks an “exhausted” player, according to the former British No1 Annabel Croft.

Murray was eliminated from the Miami Open on Monday after a three-set defeat against Grigor Dimitrov and many have made the connection between the Scot’s indifferent form and his recently becoming a father.

The 28-year-old returned to action in March after the birth of his daughter but made an early exit from Indian Wells and looked out of sorts in Florida, smashing his racket into his bag with frustration during the 6-7, 6-4, 6-3 defeat. “There were a lot of unforced errors – 55 for him, which is a lot for Andy,” Croft told Sky Sports News HQ. “There was a lot of emotion, a lot of back-chat to the box. He admitted himself that wasn’t great and he needs to find focus. I think generally he looked exhausted.”

Leon Smith has seen Murray at his best over the past 12 months but the Great Britain Davis Cup captain agrees that Murray looks off the pace. “There’s so much going on his life, but also a snowball effect,” he told Sky Sports News.

“If you think back to the end of last year, with the Davis Cup final then only a few days off, then he went straight to Dubai for pre-season. He had a great run in Australia, reaching the final again, then suddenly a life-changing moment as Sophia arrives.

“It’s a brilliant episode and chapter in his life but it’s a lot to take in. Then we have a Davis Cup tie against Japan which was extremely stressful – the match against Kei Nishikori took a lot out of him. To then travel a big distance out to Indian Wells and start this again – there’s not been many breaks. You certainly can’t count having a child as a break! There’s a lot of changes and it will take time to adjust.”

Murray, meanwhile, has rubbished talk of a rift with his coach, Amélie Mauresmo, who. Mauresmo watched Murray lose to Dimitrov from a different part of the stadium to the box where the rest of his family.

“If I’d had a falling out then Amélie wouldn’t be here at the tournament,” he said. “We had dinner with all our families last night, so we certainly haven’t fallen out. It’s one of those things that when I win no one says anything about it, and then when I lose that’s an excuse. I don’t think that is the reason for me hitting 50 unforced errors in this match.”

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Ryder Cup for Tennis Not for Cash

A Ryder Cup-style competition for men's tennis may struggle to win player support, according to former Wimbledon champion Pat Cash.

Teams from Europe and the Rest of the World will compete annually for the Laver Cup, named after 77-year-old Australian tennis legend Rod Laver.

The inaugural edition of the event is scheduled for September 2017.

"I like the concept but I don't know if players will take it seriously," Cash told Radio 5 live sports extra.

The tournament organisers say each six-man team will be captained by a "a legend of the sport", who will pick two wildcards to add to the four players who qualify through "a results-based formula".

The 12-match competition will take place over three days, with each day featuring three singles matches and a doubles match.

The tournament is the brainchild of Team8, the management agency of 17-time grand slam winner Roger Federer, Tennis Australia and Jorge Paulo Lemann, a Brazilian businessman who represented both Brazil and Switzerland as a player in the Davis Cup.

Cash, who won the men's singles title at Wimbledon in 1987, believes the timing of the tournament will discourage the top players from signing up.

"The concept is a great idea, but it's after the US Open and the Davis Cup [semi-finals] - it's stuck in the middle of a tournament," he said.

"With the Davis Cup struggling in some places in the world, I'm not sure we need another tournament to squeeze in."

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Tennis Integrity Calls on Players

The Tennis Integrity Unit has called for any players who have concerns over possible match-fixing to come forward, reaffirming there is no evidence of anyone suppressing reports.

An investigation carried out by the BBC and BuzzFeed alleges that over the last decade a core group of 16 players have been brought to the attention of the sport’s governing bodies over suspicions they have fixed matches.

The report claims all of the 16 players have ranked in the world’s top 50 at some point and that more than half of them were playing in the Australian Open first round, which started on Monday.

Following the broadcast of the File on 4 programme ‘Tennis: Game, Set and Fix?’ on BBC Radio Four during Tuesday evening, BBC Sport later published a fresh claim from an unnamed South American tennis player in an interview with the BBC’s World Have Your Say team which detailed how matches are said to be rigged and how criminals try to avoid detection.

The male player, who requested anonymity, alleged the issues were “like a secret on the tour that everybody knows but we don’t talk about it. You know who is doing it and who is not ... We just see it and keep working.”

However, claims that the sports authorities “don’t want it to be stopped” were rejected by the TIU, which was set up in 2008.

“The TIU and the tennis authorities absolutely reject any suggestion that evidence of match-fixing has been suppressed for any reason. The sport has a zero-tolerance approach which is enforced with the full powers of the Tennis Anti-Corruption Program, which includes lifetime bans and punitive financial penalties,” the organisation said in a statement.

“Since 2009 all professional players, support staff and officials have been subject to this stringent code, which makes it compulsory to report any corrupt approaches or knowledge of suspected corrupt practices to the TIU. Failure to do so is a breach of the Program which can be subject to disciplinary action.

“The TIU works closely with players to prevent corruption through education programmes and confidential reporting systems. The great majority of the 21,000 active professional players are good people of high integrity who abhor the suggestion that the sport they love is tainted with allegations of corruption.

“We invite the player behind the allegations to make contact with the TIU and to share the information he claims to have.”

It is alleged that in 2007 tennis authorities were presented with an examination of 26,000 matches, three of them at Wimbledon, which contained enough evidence to root out offenders – but no action was taken.

The BBC, meanwhile, had said the group of 16 players also included “winners of grand slam titles” but neither organisation named players, insisting it is not possible to determine whether they were personally taking part in match-fixing.

The current world No1, Novak Djokovic, meanwhile, branded match-fixing as a “crime in sport” and confirmed he was offered £110,000 in 2006 to lose a first-round match in St Petersburg.

The seven-times Wimbledon champion Roger Federer says he will believe accusations of widespread match-fixing only when the perpetrators are named. Federer answered several questions on the controversy after his first-round win over Nikoloz Basilashvili at the Australian Open on Monday but grew irritated when asked about the potential involvement of major champions.

“I would love to hear names,” the Swiss said. “Then at least it’s concrete stuff and you can actually debate about it. Was it the player? Was it the support team? Who was it? Was it before? Was it a doubles player, a singles player? Which slam? It’s so all over the place. It’s nonsense to answer something that is pure speculation.”

Andy Murray wants more “proactive” movement from the authorities. He said: “As a player, you just want to be made aware of everything that’s going on. I think we deserve to know everything that’s out there.”

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