"Maybe I'll try again" says Andy Murray on underarm serve

Andy Murray played a fabulous match at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells to defeat Carlos Alcaraz in 3 sets. The Brit was able to come back after losing the first set and win and during the match, he did something he usually does not do. In the 2nd set Alcaraz started returning from way behind the line which Murray noticed and in an effort to draw him closer he played an underarm serve.

The serve was sucesfull winning him the point and the game considering it was an ace. The effort did not yield too many results as Alcaraz remained behind the line but Murray was still able to win the match. He said:

“If you look where he was standing at the beginning of the match to return the first serve in comparison… he changed that at the end of the first set. He started returning from further back, so it was even harder to get free points on the serve. I thought if he’s going to stand that far back and I’m getting no love from the court and the conditions – the courts are painfully slow here – why not try it and see if I can bring him forward a little bit again?

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He further said:

“Wasn’t expecting obviously to get an ace out of it. He was so far back, he didn’t obviously react. Wasn’t expecting it. Certainly when guys are standing there to return serve now, it’s a smart play. It’s the first time I’ve ever done it in a match and I got the ace. I served three aces the whole match and one of them was the underarm serve."

He then joked saying he might try it again:

“So maybe I’ll try it again in the future if guys are standing that far back.”

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