By titles won, Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares are having their best season yet as a team. The pairing has already won three ATP World Tour crowns this year, matching their total from all of last season, which saw them qualify for the Nitto ATP Finals during their debut campaign.
They've won one title on hard courts – the Abierto Mexicano Telcel in Acapulco – and two on grass – the MercedesCup in Stuttgart and the Aegon Championships at The Queen's Club in London. But the team admits they play their best tennis on hard courts. “Hard court is our best surface,” Soares says.
Murray/Soares are the third seeds at the Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati, an ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tournament. But before they begin their quest for another hard-court crown, Murray/Soares talk about the most important lesson their first coaches taught them and what necessity they bought with their first prize money in the latest installment of ATP Firsts.
First coach and most important lesson he/she taught me
Murray: First coach was my mum she taught me lots, I don't know what her first piece of advice was.
Soares: My first coach... it was back when I lived in Iraq, the one thing I remember was he kept telling me to run to every ball.
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First pinch-me moment on the ATP World Tour
Murray: It was probably in the locker rooms, looking at Federer or somebody.
Soares: I think the same thing. When you start playing the big tournaments you just enjoy being around the big guys, the legends, you watch them while they're doing their routines. You start seeing them in locker rooms, restaurants.
Murray: Agassi, when I first started to play on the tour in the summer of 2006, he was on his retirement run through the U.S. hard-court tournaments. And I saw him play in LA. That was pretty cool.
Soares: Maybe I was even a junior at the time, I remember watching Pete Sampras play at Queen's. Front row. That was something very special.
First thing I bought with prize money
Murray: A flat, an apartment, priorities. Ha, ha!
Soares: I think I bought my first car with prize money. It took me a while to get that but I finally made it... back in the day it was a Peugeot 206, maybe a 2004, '05... It was used. I actually bought it from my sister. She didn't give it to me.
Murray: That's what I'm driving right now! Ha, ha... I drive a Peugeot.