Australian Open: Andy Murray is fine with ‘boring’ progress in searing heat

ANDY Murray described as “boring” his 49-minute stroll against Mikhail Kukushkin at the Australian Open, but admitted it was good to get through to the quarter-finals with the minimum of effort.

Kukushkin was struggling from the outset with a left hip flexor problem, an injury sustained during his epic five-set win over Gael Monfils in the previous round, and was unable to put up a fight in what quickly became a lifeless encounter.

The unassuming Kazakh dragged it out for just over two sets but sensibly opted to retire when trailing 6-1, 6-1, 1-0 and with no chance of turning it around. It was far from ideal for the crowd and Murray, who will play Kei Nishikori next following the Japanese player’s surprise victory over sixth seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, admitted he too had taken little enjoyment from it.

“It was boring,” he said. “There was nothing happening on the court. I didn’t have to do anything, just hit the ball in court and he wasn’t running. He was making mistakes the first or second ball of the rally. That was it.”

The fourth seed felt Kukushkin had made the right decision to pull out when he did. “Yeah, because it was pointless, he wasn’t running,” he added. “The people probably weren’t enjoying the match, I certainly wasn’t. There wasn’t any good points because he couldn’t move properly. Sometimes it’s just best to stop. I get to conserve a bit of energy but he was obviously struggling.”

Murray had no idea coming into the match that the world No 92 was carrying a problem. “We practised on the court next to each other this morning, we both practised for about 40 minutes,” he said. “I saw him bouncing around before he went on court and it wasn’t until I went up 3-0 pretty quickly I realised he wasn’t really moving.”

Kukushkin looked out of sorts from the off, although initially it looked as though nerves, rather than an injury, were getting to him. Murray cruised through the opening three games and although he dropped his own serve, making a number of uncharacteristically sloppy errors on the way, he broke back for 4-1. Kukushkin confirmed the suspicion he was not physically at 100 per cent when he called for the trainer at the change of ends, but Murray was in no mood to relinquish his grip on proceedings and a hold and another break won him the opening set.

Murray remained in complete control at the start of the second, breaking again for a 2-0 lead after stepping in to crush a second serve to Kukushkin’s feet. But, just as he did in the first, he failed to back up the break as a poor set of points, culminating in a backhand which hit the net halfway up, gifted his opponent a break back. Kukushkin was still struggling on serve, though, while his physical state appeared to be getting worse. In a bid to keep the points short he started rushing the net, but that just played into the Scot’s hands as he broke once more and then held with ease to go 4-1 ahead.

For all Kukushkin’s struggles, Murray was finally starting to find his own game and some clean hitting saw him go 5-1 up before he held to love to claim the second set.

From that point there was little prospect of a Kukushkin victory and, having lost his serve for an eighth successive time, he decided to quit. “Before the match I was warming up but I could see I could not play fully today because my left hip didn’t allow me to run, even to serve,” Kukushkin said. “I was only able to serve the second serve with the pain. The last two rounds have cost me a lot and today unfortunately I was not able to show anything, to play, to compete. It’s so sad this match was not entertaining. It probably was not much fun to watch and I feel bad for that.”

Although he was clearly underwhelmed by yesterday’s events, Murray was pleased to have spent such little time on court, especially as Nishikori had to battle for five sets over three-and-a-half hours to see off Tsonga. “It’s perfect because you conserve energy,” the 24-year-old said. “You just need to make sure you hit enough balls to make sure you don’t lose any rhythm. At this stage of the tournament, to be off court in 45 minutes or so is not bad.”