Andy Murray reveals his favourite players to watch and explains how the ‘game has changed’
Andy Murray has named Carlos Alcaraz, Iga Swiatek and Gael Monfils as three of the players he most enjoys watching as he also analysed how tennis “has changed” during his career.
The three-time major champion highlighted Alcaraz’s variety, power and unpredictability as reasons he “loves” taking in the Spaniard’s matches, while revealing Swiatek is his favourite women’s player to watch.
Murray earned his third victory of the year with a strong 6-3, 6-2 triumph over qualifier and former world No 7 David Goffin in the opening round of the 2024 Indian Wells Masters on Wednesday.
The win was Murray’s best of the 2024 campaign and one of his most impressive performances in the past year as he earned a first round victory for the third straight tournament, having lost his opening four matches this year.
The 36-year-old Brit will face world No 5 Andrey Rublev in the second round of the ATP Masters 1000 tournament as he looks to win back-to-back matches for the first time since Toronto in August.
Following his exit from the Dubai Championships last month, Murray divulged he was “likely not going to play past the summer” as he addressed questions over his tennis future.
READ MORE: Andy Murray identifies possible Andrey Rublev weakness as he claims ‘lines have been crossed’
Speaking in an interview on Tennis Channel after beating Goffin, former world No 1 Murray was asked which players he likes to watch and who “excites” him.
Alcaraz, Monfils & Świątek!@Andy_Murray reveals players he enjoys watching himself, as well as who was nice to young Andy on tour!#TennisParadise pic.twitter.com/HApAnsboqw
— Tennis Channel (@TennisChannel) March 7, 2024
“I love watching Alcaraz, just because of the way he plays the game. He’s got so much variety and power and he tries stuff, you know, like he doesn’t always get it right,” he explained.
“He makes mistakes and that is also something that I enjoy watching, you never know what’s gonna come next. I’ve always enjoyed watching Monfils as well.
“And on the women’s side, I love watching Iga, I think she’s brilliant to watch. She’s my favourite player to watch on the female side. But yeah, I try and watch as much as I can.”
The current world No 61 also highlighted the increase in power in tennis as he spoke about how the sport has changed since his arrival on the tour.
“I do love to watch and the game has changed a little bit I think in the last sort of five or six years, with the way guys are hitting the ball now. A lot of guys are really unloading, it wasn’t like that when I started my career,” the two-time Olympic champion assessed.
“And yeah, trying to find different ways of making it difficult for them to do that and that’s where I have to use my game and my strengths to try and make it difficult for them. I don’t want to be trying to hit the ball as hard as them or go toe to toe as much.
“I need to use my variety, use the slice and the touch and the height to get the ball out of their comfort zone. It’s a lot harder to hit a big ball when it’s up above your shoulder or below the waist. So yeah, try to use that to my advantage.”
