"I'm not planning on playing the clay season, I would have to put Rafael Nadal as being the favorite to win the French Open" - Andy Murray
Andy Murray's run at the 2022 BNP Paribas Open came to an end with a second-round defeat at the hands of 31st seed Alexander Bublik on Sunday. The Briton, who recently notched his 700th ATP tour win, could not replicate his first-round comeback efforts, eventually falling 7-6(9), 6-3.
Speaking at his post-match press conference, Murray discussed his schedule over the next few weeks. The 34-year-old revealed that he has no plans to play the European claycourt swing, which gets underway next month.
Shifting his focus to the favorites heading into the clay season, Murray said Rafael Nadal's incredible start to the season would have given him plenty of confidence.
The Brit added that while the likes of Novak Djokovic cannot be completely ruled out, he has his money on Nadal winning his 14th French Open title.
"I'm not planning on playing the clay court season," Murray said. "However, as it stands today I would have to put Rafa as being the favorite to potentially win the French Open again. Novak's obviously had very little competitive tennis for a period, and Rafa's obviously started the year extremely well.
"So he probably feels like quite relaxed and maybe a little bit less pressure than was on him a couple of, you know, the last couple of French Opens, for example," he continued. "But I wouldn't count Novak out, for sure, but it's not going to be easy because he's obviously missed quite a lot of tennis."
"I had all of the opportunities in the first set" - Andy Murray on Indian Wells loss
Andy Murray also rued the missed opportunities in the first set of his second-round contest against Bublik. He had four break points and three set points in the set.
The former World No. 1 felt that he put himself in a winning position in the set, but couldn't capitalize. Murray added that he felt the level of his game dropped slightly on the big points and wanted to work on improving in that department.
"I think like if I look at a match like today," Murray said. "I had all of the opportunities really in the first set. Obviously a tiebreak. Both of us had some chances there, but in the first set I certainly created more of the opportunities and I didn't take them.
"He obviously came up with some good serves at times," he added. "But I certainly had my chances and, you know, against players that play that style of tennis and have obviously big serves and not easy to break, you need to, when you get those chances, you know, be ruthless and I just didn't quite play well enough in those moments today and that's the thing that obviously I want to turn around."
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