A. MURRAY/F. Verdasco
6-1, 6-2


Q. Pretty good. You happy with that?
ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, it was very good. Started off well. You know, he -- well, I saw him get a bit frustrated early in the match. You know, I stayed on top of him throughout. Didn't give him too many chances.
There was a big game early in the second set when I was down Love-40 on my serve. Once I won that, yeah, I felt very comfortable.

Q. What were you most pleased about in your game?
ANDY MURRAY: Well, just everything. I played solid. I returned well. You know, took some chances on his second serve. You know, put the ball in tough places for him and used my head.
It wasn't one thing in particular. I just did a lot of things well tonight.

Q. How good does it make you feel to have those two quick matches one after another given all the physical demands of these back-to-back championships?
ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, it's tough. Mentally it's difficult. You know, you're away for a long time. You know, obviously physically I'm still sort of getting back to sort of peak fitness.
You know, it's been sort of a blessing in some ways, I guess, I played every single match right in the heat of the day at Indian Wells and here.
Tonight was the first time I played out of the heat and, it obviously very, very comfortable. You know, when you play every match during the day, you know, in this stretch as well, it's tough to keep coming out day after day and fighting.
Tonight was nice to have that change, and tomorrow I get the same thing.

Q. Is it hard to sort of keep your focus mentally when a guy takes such a long break between sets?
ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I mean, sometimes it happens. Guys - especially in slams and stuff - guys go in for toilet breaks and stuff, and it does take sort of three, four minutes.
The thing that's tough is if you don't -- when it is a physical timeout, you don't know, you know, if it's bad, you know, how it is. You need to just make sure you keep playing your game.
You know, if a guy just goes in for a toilet break it's not too bad. But it's when they go for sort of injury timeouts and you don't know exactly what they're having done, how bad it is, and how they're going to feel when they come back out.
Luckily I got a break early, and managed to stay ahead of him.


Q. It was noted actually that you seemed to be humming along with the tune they were playing on the system. So you were very relaxed.
ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, I felt good today. You know, it was something that -- I think I play better when I'm in that sort of frame of mind. Yeah, one of my favorite songs just now, so...

Q. Del Potro is obviously on a high after beating Nadal. He was out there for three hours. Do you think that balances it?
ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, you never know how guys are going pull up the next day. I mean, you know, you take someone like Nadal and the Australian Open. Everyone thought he was going to be tired for the final if it went a long match, and, you know, he was fine.
Del Potro, I don't know, I'm sure he's in good physical shape. You know, but it was a pretty brutal match today and a lot of long points. Both guys did a lot of running. You know, obviously better for me the longer the match went.
Mine was a quick one, so in that respect that's obviously an advantage to me. But, you know, he's obviously still going to be very dangerous.

Q. When you play a guy of his kind of physique, is it a lot about trying to, as you say, put the ball in the most difficult place for him?
ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, I mean, for someone his height, he's very completely different to how most guys his height play. You know, he plays from the baseline, very solid groundstrokes, and moves well for his height.
Most guys that are that big, your Isners and Karlovic and these sort of guys, you know, Mirnyi, they play serve, volley and try to come to the net and serve a lot of aces; whereas Del Potro is not really like that.
So there's going to be a lot of rallies from the baseline. I'll just try and do what I've been doing the last few matches: use my slice and play aggressive when I need to and try and serve well. If I do that, it's going to be a tough match.


(via ASAP Sports, photo/AP Photo)

Andy Murray - Miami 02. April Interview