Andy Murray admitted the loss to Novak Djokovic in the Shanghai Masters final had taken its toll on him physically, but the U.S. Open champion was confident of bouncing back immediately.
Djokovic saved five match points in the second set, to eventually prevail over the Brit 5-7, 7-6 (11), 6-3. "It was a long match," Murray said. I'm sure he'll feel the same. It was like 3 hours, 30 minutes. It's not the first week of the year either. Also after the U.S. Open, for me anyway, took a bit of time off and stuff.
"You're never going to be in 100 percent peak physical condition in terms of your endurance, so I struggled a bit towards the end.
"Matches like that tend to (take a lot out of you physically). There were a lot of long rallies, long points, long games. A very physical match.
"It was a disappointing one to lose. I've lost tougher matches than that before in the biggest events. So I'm sure I'll recover from it pretty well."
Djokovic admitted he was a little lucky to come away with the victory, after saying his opponent was the better player overall in the match. However, Murray felt the match was petty even, with Djokovic coming out firing in the big points. "The third set he played better than me," Murray said. The first set, there were a lot of breaks. It was fairly even.
"The second set, I probably played a little bit better. But he came up, served very well on the match points. The one match point I had on my serve, he hit the forehand onto the edge of the line. I mean, on the game where I also served for the match, he also came up with some good shots.
"It's not like I threw the match away. I didn't make I don't think any real glaring errors or anything. When I had my chances, he just served very well and hit a couple of lines when he needed to."
Asked if he was disappointed with the loss, Murray said: "To be honest, I don't feel that frustrated right now. Maybe previously that would have been the case. There were obviously some moments in the match, I guess both of us showed a bit of frustration. We obviously wanted to win a lot.
"But, I mean, I feel okay just now. I'm sure after a few days, you know, I'll get over it. But, yeah, you're disappointed to lose matches like that when you obviously had the chance to win them."
Murray, the two-time champion here in Shanghai, reserved special praise for the organizers of the tournament. "Every time I've come here, it's been very good, the facilities," he added. "I don't think they've changed much, but they also didn't need to.
"You have excellent food here. They have a lot of practice courts. They have a good gym on site. They're very, very organized.
"So that's why it's been one of the best tournaments on the tour the last few years. It doesn't need to change much."
