Come on pass me an apology, Murray urges umpire

By Pritha Sarkar

LONDON (Reuters) - Over the past fortnight Andy Murray has had a congratulatory note from the Queen, a good luck message from actor Sean Connery and now he wants a letter of apology from umpire Pascal Maria.

The third seed's dream of becoming the first British man to play in a Wimbledon final since 1938 was wrecked by American Andy Roddick on Friday but that did not mean the Scot was ready to forget about what happened during the match.

He was particularly irked by a code violation he was handed by the French umpire for audible obscenity while trailing 6-4 4-6 4-1.

Screaming in frustration at a missed forehand, the Scot urged himself to "Come on pass" but it appeared that those around him had misheard him.

In a heated exchange with the umpire, he told Maria: "What did you think I said? I said 'Come on, pass'. You are wrong, not maybe, 100 percent."

Later in the news conference, he voiced his disappointment with the way the incident had been handled.

"That stuff just annoys me," Murray said following his 6-4 4-6 7-6 7-6 defeat by sixth seed Roddick.

"You can count the amount of times that you get given a code violation when you said something at the back of the court quietly, and the line judge goes up to the umpire and tells him.