Aidan McHugh beaten in Glasgow despite 'quite cool' advice from Andy Murray

  • Posted: May 02, 2018

Advice from Andy Murray could not prevent Scottish teenager Aidan McHugh falling to a first round defeat at the Glasgow Trophy ATP Challenger.

The 17-year-old lost 7-6 (7-5) 6-3 to France’s David Guez, who is seeded third at Scotstoun.

Guez, at 284 in the world, is nearly a thousand places higher up the rankings than McHugh, an Australian Open semi-finalist in this year’s boys’ event.

“I spoke to him (Murray) about how to play him a little bit,” said McHugh.

“That’s a bit weird for me because Andy actually knows these guys that I’m playing so that’s quite cool and hopefully that kind of thing can help in the future.

“I don’t know if Andy was watching, I’m sure if he could he would be watching to see how I got on. He’s been great just having him around, obviously he knows what he’s talking about so any kind of advice and guidance helps me loads.”

McHugh is signed to Murray’s sports management company and has been used as a practice partner as the former world number bids to recover from hip surgery.

The teen had the opportunity to serve out for the first set at 6-5 but could not get the better of his 35-year-old opponent.

“It’s nice to feel like my level is there to beat a lot of these guys,” he said.

“Just a few wee things like when I was serving for the first set, not to give away as many cheap errors, that’s just obviously a bit frustrating now but something I can learn from, closing out sets against guys like that who are not just going to go away when they go a break down.”

There was better news for fellow wildcard James Ward who dug out a win on his road to recovery from knee surgery.

The 31-year-old Englishman, who missed seven months before his return to fitness in February, beat sixth seed Kaichi Uchida from Japan 6-4 7-6 (8-6).

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