Andy Murray: David Nalbandian TV quiz was ‘unfair’

By ALIX RAMSAY
Published on 21/06/2012 00:00

ANDY Murray has vowed never to “do a Nalbandian” on court, but the Scot was yesterday at pains to defend the Argentine who was defaulted from the Aegon Championships final at Queen’s Club on Sunday.

In a moment of madness, the Argentine lashed out during the second set of the final against Marin Cilic and gave the advertising boards near a line judge’s chair an almighty kick.

The board broke, the line judge, Andrew McDougall, ended up with a bloody gash to his shin and Nalbandian was given his marching orders. He was then interviewed court-side by the BBC and gave a rambling attempt at an apology and subsequent rant at the ATP, the governors of men’s tennis.

Murray was not about to defend the indefensible when speaking at the Boodles exhibition event in Buckinghamshire yesterday, but the Scot did think that his old rival had been treated unfairly when he was pushed in front of the TV cameras and asked to explain himself.

“I’m sure he probably thinks he made a mistake there but why were they letting him speak?” Murray said. “Get him off the court. He was clearly angry, he’d snapped – which many people have done over the years. They should have taken him off the court and protected him because he ended up saying things he probably didn’t mean to say, but you’ve got to protect the players.

“He was very angry – you could see clearly that he was still arguing. He was shaking his head when he was walking up [to the microphone] and as soon as he said ‘but’ they should have taken the microphone away.

“In any other sport, if someone flips out or snaps, you don’t stick a microphone in their face and try to get them to speak. You’re going to say something you don’t really mean or regret, so I think he made a mistake but he shouldn’t have been allowed to talk.”