Andy Murray reveals nightmare Australian Open schedule after defeat to Roberto Bautista Agut

Andy Murray has revealed how his marathon match against Thanasi Kokkinakis affected him ahead of his Australian Open third-round clash against Roberto Bautista Agut, which ended in defeat.

“I slept from 6am until 9am, the night, well the morning, I played the match with Kokkinakis which obviously isn’t enough,” said Murray.

“Then I had to come in here, had about seven or eight blisters that I had to have drained then you put this liquid in to dry them.

“I had to come in and do that in the morning to give them time to settle, then I went back to the hotel, slept for a few hours and then hit for like 15 minutes yesterday [Friday], and [had] the ice baths, saw my physio.

“My feet didn’t feel great, my legs were actually Ok, they didn’t feel too bad. But I was struggling with my lower back and that was affecting my serve and that was really the main thing that I was struggling with today.”

He made his feelings clear during the match too and was asked again about his thoughts, now he is out of the tournament.

“I mean long matches can happen,” said Murray. “Obviously I do think the courts are not slow here, they’re not a bad pace but it has been cool in the evenings and stuff which can slow things down, and the balls after a couple of games are playing very slow.

“But I’m sure if you went and spoke to some sleep experts, sports scientists and whatever, people who really know what’s important for athletes to recover, they would tell you sleep is the No. 1 thing, the most important thing.

“So finishing at four o’clock in the morning is not good for the players but I would argue is also not good for the sport, anyone involved in it.

“I do think there are some quite simple things that can be done to change that. I think the US Open went to playing two matches in the day session, that would stop the day matches running into the night session and starting too late, so that’s quite a simple one to look at.

“You’d still get quality matches and the people with ground passes would get to see more top players. If you did that you could bring the night season earlier like 6pm, 6.30pm and that could make a difference to the players.”

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