Murray: We need to be careful of the way we speak to officials

Andy Murray says that players need to be “careful” about how they speak to match officials.

The former British No. 1 takes on world No. 5 Andrey Rublev in the second round at Indian Wells on Friday.

According to a Russian-speaking official, Rublev swore in his native language at the line judge.

Rublev denies he spoke Russian and won his appeal against losing the week’s ranking points and prize money. However, he still had to pay a £28,700 code violation fine.

In 2022, Alexander Zverev was disqualified from the Mexican Open after striking the umpire’s chair several times with his racquet and was given a suspended eight-week ban.

Murray says that players could do a “better job” of how they speak to officials.

“All of us players – and I think I’ve been guilty of it myself – we need to be a little bit careful of the way that we speak to officials and treat officials,” he said.

“There’s a huge difference between rugby and football – rugby is a great example for how to deal with it. Officials are dealt with respectfully and we could probably do a better job with it in tennis as well.

“At the end of the day, we as players shouldn’t be doing that. We are the one in the wrong – not the official.”

He added: “I understand that in the heat of battle sometimes things happen, but I think over the last four or five years there have been a number of instances where lines have probably been crossed – and maybe not enough has been done about it.

“So I think we all probably have to have a bit of a look at ourselves and go ‘is this really the way we want to be dealing with officials or bad line calls?'”