Andy Murray: 'Time violations difficult to avoid'

Andy Murray has insisted that he has no complaints over twice being penalised for exceeding the 20-second limit between points.

The British number one got the better of Joao Sousa to advance into the third round of the French Open on Thursday evening, but the win did not come without a brief controversial moment.

Umpire Pascal Maria felt that Murray had waited too long before serving in the fourth game of the third set - his second such offence in the match - which cost him a fault.

Murray acknowledges that the rules are in place to help the sport flow, but he believes that it can sometimes be difficult to avoid violations.

"I wasn't annoyed with the time thing at all, I made no issue of it on the court," he is quoted as saying by the Daily Mail. "I think it's there for a reason. Sometimes I play too slow and that's unintentional. I don't mean to do it.

"But obviously as a player you have no idea how long you're taking in between the points and people can say, 'Oh, they do, they play tennis', but the reality is things happen sometimes.

"You don't get the ball in time or the towel in time. Or the second one that I got, genuinely I was up at the line in good time, but they were showing the highlights from the point before, so I didn't serve. So sometimes things like that make it tougher for the players but there were points today where I got told I was playing too slow and I should try to speed up. And I did."

Murray will now take on Nick Kyrgios at Roland Garros on Saturday.