Murray Ponders Exhibition Match With Serena in Vegas

June 28, 2013 | By Erin Brown
Andy_Murray_12
Photo credit: Kenneth B. Goldberg

Because of Serena Williams’ dominance of the women’s game, Andy Murray has talked about what it would be like to challenge her to a match. Serena was able to avoid injury in her match on Thursday, unlike many other participants at Wimbledon 2013, and had an easy 6-3, 6-2 win over France’s Caroline Garcia.

Andy Murray, who is now ranked second in the men’s game, believes that the power and skill of Serena will make a tough match between the two. In Murray’s blog on BBC News, he challenged Serena to a match in Las Vegas. Despite her success in the women’s game, she knows how tough a match against Murray would be.

In response to a tweet from a tennis fan on Twitter: "I reckon Serena Williams could beat u on grass … And I’m not even joking." "Me too!" replied Murray. "Maybe we can set it up one day and see how close I get."

"He wants to play me?," Serena said. "Is he sure? That would be fun. I doubt I’d win a point, but that would be fun. He’s probably one of the top three people I definitely don’t want to play. But maybe we can have a little bit of a showdown."

This is not the first time that a battle of the sexes has happened in tennis. About 40 years ago, Bobby Riggs and Billy Jean King played a match with King coming out the victor. The next match, about 20 years later, was between Martina Navratilova and Jimmy Connors. The difference with this match was that the rules were slightly changed to benefit Navratilova. 

Serena is considering the showdown, but wants to set her own rules for the matchup first. 

"I get alleys," Serena said. "He gets no serves. I get alleys on my serves, too. He gets no legs, yeah."

The 31-year-old Serena is five years older than Murray, but would not back away from the challenge of facing him. Serena currently has 16 Grand Slam titles to Murray’s one over the course of their careers.


Erin Brown
Intern

Erin Brown is an intern at Long Island and New York Tennis Magazine. She graduated from George Washington University with a degree in English, where she was also a member of the Club Tennis team. She may be reached by e-mail at erinb@litennismag.com.

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