'Queen's defeat means more practice and Peppa Pig'
| 2017 Aegon Championships |
|---|
| Venue: Queen’s Club, London Dates: 19-25 June |
| Coverage: Comprehensive live coverage on BBC One, BBC Two, Red Button, Connected TV and online daily |
Losing in the first round at Queen’s Club doesn’t mean I can’t go on and do well at Wimbledon. It just means I’ve got a lot of work to do.
I knew before the tournament that I still have some way to go if I’m going to get up to the level where I challenge for the biggest titles, but I certainly expected more from myself.
I’m not the only player to suffer a surprise on the grass – Roger Federer lost in the first round in Stuttgart, and Stan Wawrinka and Milos Raonic also lost at Queen’s on Tuesday.
Grass is a very different surface and can take time to adjust to, but I had plenty of time on the courts in the week before and was practising well, so no excuses there.
Conditions at Queen’s might be playing slightly quicker than usual because of how warm it’s been, so the court’s a bit drier, which speeds it up. Again, I have enough experience to handle that.
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The quality of the guys across the net has a lot to do with it.
I saw a bit of Thanasi Kokkinakis against Raonic, and he played great, some really good stuff when he was behind in the games. Feliciano Lopez is a very good grass-court player and played extremely well against Wawrinka.
And sometimes it’s just coincidence. In an individual sport these results can happen.
‘Three or four hours is enough to prepare’
I found out that I was playing Jordan Thompson a few hours before the match, when I finished practising and saw on my phone that he had replaced Aljaz Bedene, who was injured.
At a Grand Slam, I will usually I talk about the next match with my team the night before, while at other events, when you play day after day, we tend to chat an hour and a half before the match.
That wasn’t the case on Tuesday. I hadn’t gone through any of my pre-match game plan with the team, but online you can get plenty of footage, so they found a little bit of him playing and I had a look on a tablet.
Three or four hours is still enough time to get ready for a different opponent; it can often be a lot shorter.
When it came down to it, he just played better than me.
He served well, I didn’t return the first serve well enough, and my decision-making and movement on the grass can get better.
‘Fewer matches means more practice’
First-round defeats haven’t happened loads during my career at Queen’s Club, but they have happened.
I lost to Nicolas Mahut in 2012 and used the extra time to play a couple of exhibition matches, and then reached my first final at Wimbledon.
Winning a tournament is great and you feel good afterwards, but you can also sometimes think that your game is in a good place and maybe become a little bit more relaxed in that week beforehand.
Now, there is clearly a lot of work required. I need to get myself out there on the practice court.
There will be a slight change of plans and each day becomes extremely important, because I just don’t have the matches behind me. I’ll need to put in a good 10 or 12 days of hard work.
Fewer matches means more practice, so it won’t change my home life too much in the build-up to Wimbledon.
My daughter Sophia sleeps pretty much from 6.30pm most days and I leave to practise pretty early, then I’m not back until quite late.
I’m very thankful she sleeps in the evenings – it’s a good thing – but it does mean I don’t get to see her quite as much.
Hopefully we’ll get the chance to catch a bit of Peppa Pig somewhere along the line.
Andy Murray was talking to BBC Sport’s Piers Newbery