An emotional Andy Murray could not get out of Melbourne soon enough as he was keen to reunite with his heavily pregnant wife Kim, with their first child due in the next two weeks.
The Scot ran in and out of his press conference following his straight-sets defeat to Novak Djokovic in the Australian Open final last night and he blamed his slew of unforced errors for his loss.
“He won 25 more points than me, 26 more points. I had 25 or 26 more unforced errors,” said Murray, who hasn’t beaten Djokovic in a major since their Wimbledon 2013 final.
“I think I didn’t hit my forehand particularly well at the beginning of the match. I started to hit it better in the third set. But, yeah, that was it.”
On the court, Murray was fighting tears as he addressed the crowd while accepting his runner-up trophy.
“I feel like I’ve been here before,” he joked, referring to his four other Australian Open final defeats.
“To my wife Kim who I’m sure is watching back home, you’ve been a legend the last two weeks, thank you so much for all of your support and I’ll be on the next flight home.”
Between Kim’s looming delivery date, and her father, Nigel Sears, collapsing in the stands last week while watching a match between his pupil Ana Ivanovic and Madison Keys, Murray has had a tough fortnight in Melbourne. He says he’s been “understandably” having slow starts in his matches but against Djokovic, that kind of start gets immediately punished.
“I’m proud of the way I fought and managed to get myself back into the match. But, yeah, obviously didn’t start particularly well,” he added. “It’s been hard. Regardless of today’s result, it’s been hard. Had I lost in the third or fourth round it still would have been difficult with everything that’s happened.”
