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Media pressure building on Murray

January 17, 2006 14:51 IST

Media pressure and expectation is already beginning to build on Andy Murray, the teenage Briton said on Tuesday after a 6-1, 6-3, 6-3 defeat to Argentina's Juan Ignacio Chela in the Australian Open's first round.

The 18-year-old made 43 unforced errors while trying to be too aggressive during his Melbourne Park debut and was reflective after the defeat.

"You don't think there's any pressure on me?" 62nd-ranked Murray asked a journalist at the news conference. "Well, if you don't think that, then I'm obviously going to disagree on something.

"If you guys don't think you're putting pressure on me, then that's fine. I'll forget about it.

"It wasn't my best day. But you can't play well every single day. You know, it's the first time I've been easily beaten since I've been on the tour.

"It's a little bit disappointing. I played really silly tennis for two sets (and) I was just trying to be way too aggressive.

MANY MISTAKES

"I was making so many mistakes. That's just not the way that I play."

Murray, who moved up 449 places to enter the top 100 in 2005, added he was still learning how to play his game at the highest level and he expected to lose matches, particularly against higher-ranked and more experienced players.

"When you're this young it's difficult to stay consistent all the time.

"When you learn how to play your game your best, then that's when you're going to play very consistently each week.

"If you guys expect me to play well every single match and every single tournament then it's not going to happen.

"Everybody has a bad tournament sometime. Unfortunately, it came here.

"But I'm going to have much better days than this one, and I'm sure I'll have worse days."

Source: REUTERS
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