Tennis star Andy Murray Backs Mayweather vs. Pacquiao
I crossed paths with the tennis champ Andy Murray inside the stadium at the Sony Ericsson Open tennis tournament in Key Biscayne, FL and discussed a tiny bit of boxing. A few years ago we did a feature about Murray’s passionate interest in boxing and the 2011 Australian Open finalist revealed he is an avid admirer and supporter of the American boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr.
Said 23-year-old Murray, who has won 16 professional tennis title and over $14 million in prize money, about Floyd: “…Now I love watching Floyd Mayweather, even though a lot of people don’t like him. They think he’s boring, and fights too defensively. But the object of boxing is to hit your opponent and not get hit. And he hits opponents five, six times more than they hit him.”
“Mayweather’s not a knockout artist, but he’s the best boxer to watch. He doesn’t really care what people think, he just wants to win regardless of how it looks. Very few boxers are able to do that because it can become sort of a macho thing and they want to throw loads of punches. But Mayweather always stays cool under pressure.”
(To read the feature, check out this link: http://www.boxinginsider.com/columns/celebrity-boxing-fan-tennis-player-andy-murray/ )
These pro-Mayweather quotes were from three years ago. As time has gone by and Mayweather is suspected of dodging the colossal clash with Manny Pacquiao, I was curious to know if Andy Murray still believed in and backed his man Floyd Mayweather.
As Murray walked by after entering the stadium to prepare for a doubles match that afternoon with Novak Djokovic against Sergei Stakhovskiy and Mikhail Youzhny, I simply asked Murray: “Mayweather or Pacquiao?”
Murray paused for a few seconds and then replied, with a sly smile, “I’m still going with Mayweather.”
Murray, who is renowned for his defensive style of playing tennis, is currently ranked #5 in the ATP rankings. He has reached the finals of three grand slam majors, falling short each time against Roger Federer at the 2008 U.S. and 2010 Australian Open and earlier this year to Djokovic, also at the Australian.
Murray and partner Djokovic were defeated in the doubles match by Stakhovskiy and Youzhny, 10-8 in the third set match tiebreak, after splitting the first two sets.