Jamie Murray has hit out at his Davis Cup team-mate Dan Evans, describing his comments that doubles players “didn’t work hard enough to have a singles career” as “dumb, ignorant and lazy”.
Evans, who reached the second round of the singles at the Australian Open, told The Daily Mail that Murray had been "ludicrous" to suggest that Britain should celebrate doubles success more, and that Louis Cayer, the country’s doubles coach, should be given a more prominent role in British tennis.
But Murray said it was hard to take criticism from someone “who has made a hash of his career with his decision-making”, referring to his one-year ban for taking cocaine, which ended last April.
“For me, they are lazy comments to make,” Murray said in Melbourne. “It is ill-informed and dumb really.
“To question the reason that we are on the doubles tour is because we don't work as hard as the singles guys is just total nonsense.
“I've been playing the tour since 2007, travelling the world, working my ass off to stay at the top of the game and make a living for myself.
“[Coming] from someone who really hasn't applied himself as much as he should and really... he has made a hash of his career with his decision making and stuff. To come out with those sort of comments is just ignorant I think. It's really disappointing. “
Murray said doubles deserved recognition.
“What I want to say about the celebration of success is that we should be celebrating any success that we have in this sport, whether it’s singles, doubles, mixed doubles, wheelchairs, whatever,” he said.
“Everybody should be getting their recognition for the efforts that they’re putting in and the success that they’re having.
“It’s not just singles that you can make a career from tennis in. I think it’s important for a lot of young kids to know that growing up because it’s not easy to make it in the tennis world. “
“Of course when people start playing they want to be singles players because if you look at the prize money and the glory and stuff, that’s where it is. I’m playing on a Tour where 80 percent of the prize money goes to the singles. At the Grand Slams it’s even more.
“So we’ve got a much smaller slice of the pie, but I still manage to make a good living playing tennis. Let’s be honest, a lot better living than what Dan has done in his career.”
Murray’s current career earnings stand at $4,277,708, compared to Evans’ total of $1,414,593.
“If he does something that’s noteworthy and deserves recognition then absolutely he should get it, along with anybody else that’s got a GBR next to their name. But just to kind of lazily trash the doubles game, for me it annoys me a lot.”
Murray and his partner Bruno Soares saved three match points to beat Kevin Kraweitz of Germany and Nikola Mektic of Croatia 6-7, 6-2, 7-5 to reach the quarter-finals of the men's doubles, and is still going strong in the mixed.
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