(Reuters) -After reuniting with his stinky shoes and wedding ring, Andy Murray was back in business as the former world number one sealed a comfortable 6-3 6-2 win over Frenchman Adrian Mannarino in the first round of the Indian Wells tournament on Friday.
Murray was the talk of social media https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/sports/murray-makes-online-plea-help-find-stolen-wedding-ring-2021-10-07 this week as he asked for fans’ help in finding his items that went missing after training for the event in the California desert.
The Briton was happy with his performance, firing five aces and striking 19 winners to secure his first victory at the Indian Wells since 2016, but said the missing items dilemma before the match nearly pushed him to contact the police.
“I spoke to the lost and found at the hotel… they said they’d found nothing. I spoke to security. They said they found nothing,” Murray said.
“I was going to file a police report to try to get them back or increase my chance of getting them back.
“(The hotel) decided to take all of my details down. I asked them if they could look at the cameras… about an hour later, one of the employees at the hotel found them in their lost and found.”
Murray will face 18-year-old Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz in the second round as he looks to improve on his best career finish at the tournament in 2015, when he reached the semi-finals.
The 34-year-old, who had hip surgeries in 2018 and 2019, has struggled to reclaim the kind of form that helped him win three major titles and two consecutive Olympic singles gold medals in London and Rio de Janeiro.
“Whilst my body feels good, I want to try to play as much as I can between now and the end of the year to set myself up as best as I can for next season,” he said.
(Reporting by Manasi Pathak in Bengaluru; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)
