Battle of the Brits: Murray kneels in solidarity with BLM, then wins

According to Andy Murray, Liam Broady should be kicking himself after today’s 6-2, 6-2 defeat at the Battle of the Brits in Roehampton.

“If I lost to someone with a metal hip, I would be very disappointed,” Murray joked before the match, while underselling his chances in typical British fashion. Murray, not necessarily an eternal optimist, wasn’t very pleased with his performance despite the dominant scoreline.

“It was ok,” Murray said. “I served pretty well and got a lot of free points, but I made a lot of errors from the back of the court, my balance didn’t feel great and I wasn’t timing the ball well.”

Battle of the Brits competitors are taking a knee before the match in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. (Getty Images)

While it’s just his first match since a narrow Davis Cup win over Tallon Griekspoor in November, and we shouldn’t read into Tuesday's performance too much, there was an interesting tactic change from the former world No. 1. Normally, Murray uses his backhand (one of the best two-handers of all time) to do the bulk of his damage during baseline rallies. Today, he used his forehand as his primary weapon from the ground, while almost exclusively slicing his backhand.

It’s understandable, as few shots put more pressure on the hip joint than a sliding, open stance two-handed backhand. Moving forward, it will be interesting to see if he continues to opt for the slice backhand to alleviate pressure on his surgically repaired left hip.

Murray will face off against Kyle Edmund on Wednesday in the most anticipated matchup of the event. Once again, Murray downplayed his chances.

“Kyle’s fit and hitting a big ball so I’d be surprised if I managed to come through that one, but if I serve like I did today and hit the ball cleaner from the ground I’ll give myself some chances.”