Top players don’t want to strike, says Murray

Andy Murray backtracked on suggestions that players could strike over the crowded tennis calendar, saying yesterday that he and his rivals had been unfairly portrayed as spoilt.

“Me, and not any of the players I know, want to strike,” the world No 4 told his pre-tournament news conference at the Shanghai Masters.

Murray, who is defending his title in Shanghai, said his suggestion last month that players would consider striking had been blown out of proportion. “When I said it was a possibility, I didn’t expect that to be such a massive [media issue],” the Scot said. “It’s so far away from being at that level. The players haven’t even sat down and talked.”

In his remarks to the BBC last month, Murray had said the players, unhappy at being required to play so many tournaments, might discuss strike action when they met up in Shanghai. However, yesterday, the Scot adopted a more measured tone.

“I don’t really want to go into much detail. I have nothing really to say… The last time I did, it was turned into a massive hoopla,” he said. “The players, I think, are maybe coming across as being spoilt when I don’t think that is the case.”

He said the Players’ Council would try to organise a meeting “before the end of the year”. “Whether it happens or not… It’s quite a tough thing to do because there’s a lot of players to coordinate,” added Murray, who opens his title defence against Russian Dmitry Tursunov today.

Earlier, world No 2 Rafael Nadal was equally vague when asked if players would discuss the calendar this week. “I don’t think it is the right time to talk about this. Any information you need to know, you will know. There is something there, but I don’t want to talk about it, especially when nothing is clear. [So] not talking is better than talking,” said the Spaniard.

Nadal dismissed suggestions that talks could not go ahead without the presence of the Players Council’s president, world No 3 Roger Federer, who pulled out of the Shanghai tournament citing fatigue. “I am the vice-president and I am here. That is not the problem in my opinion. I said maybe some things are happening, but I am not 100 per cent sure about what’s going on.”

Nadal – who crashed out of the men’s doubles in Shanghai yesterday when he and partner Marc Lopez lost to Germany’s Christopher Kas and Austria’s Alexander Peya – said he was in touch with “a lot of players” and that they had discussed changing the calendar.

“The important thing is that, yes, I can say most of us, almost everyone, is in the same way of thinking. So we have power.”