Why injured Andy should take leaf out of Fed’s book
HAVING put himself through physical pain for the last six months in his ultimately unsuccessful attempt to recover full fitness, Andy Murray has subjected himself this week to what must feel like emotional torture.
As if missing next week’s Australian Open was not distressing enough, the former World No.1 is now recovering in the city that stages the year’s opening Grand Slam following hip surgery.
Murray is unlikely to drop in at Melbourne Park, but whenever he turns on the television he is likely to see familiar faces.
Yesterday he could have watched Novak Djokovic trounce Dominic Thiem down the road at Kooyong in his first match since Wimbledon, Tomas Berdych beat Rafael Nadal in the final of the Tie Break Tens exhibition event in Margaret Court Arena, or action from tournaments in Sydney, Hobart and Auckland.
At least Murray has not been the only player waging his fitness battles. Djokovic and Stan Wawrinka might yet join him on the absentees’ list next week — the Serb is still assessing his elbow problem while the Swiss cast doubt on his own prospects of returning after knee surgery when he pulled out of the Tie Break Tens tournament.
Nadal, meanwhile, has not played competitively this year because of his knee problems.
In the women’s game, Serena Williams has decided that returning four months after giving birth is too early,
Johanna Konta has been recovering from a hip problem and Garbine Muguruza withdrew from a tournament for the second week in a row.
Planning a schedule that gives you the best chance of success in the most important tournaments has never been a greater priority for many leading players.
It will no doubt occupy much of Murray’s thinking in the weeks and months ahead as he works towards his intended return this summer.
Murray has already decided that he will no longer put himself through the sort of schedule that saw him play 87 matches in 2016, the last of which saw him secure the year-end World No.1 ranking for the first time. Murray played 17 tournaments that year, as well as the Hopman Cup exhibition and two Davis Cup ties.
“I’m not going to be putting in the same amount of tournaments and effort to try to get to No.1 in the world,” Murray said as he looked ahead to his return.
“I’ll be more considerate in the amount of tournaments I play, even though I play a conservative schedule anyway. I’ll be focusing more on trying to win major events and big tournaments rather than ranking goals.”
Roger Federer’s extraordinary success last year proved what can be achieved on a limited schedule. Having taken off the last six months of 2016 to recover from knee trouble, Fed (right) played just 12 tournaments in 2017.
He won seven of them, including the Australian Open and Wimbledon, and even ran Nadal close in the race for the year-end No.1 ranking. Assuming Murray returns to somewhere close to full fitness, might he consider a similar schedule to Federer’s?
The key to the 36-year-old’s success was skipping the entire clay-court campaign in order to focus on Wimbledon and the hard-court season.
Even though Murray has enjoyed some success on clay, the surface has always been the most challenging for him. Not only is it harder for any player to win points on clay than on any other surface, but Murray also found that it aggravated the back problem for which he had surgery in 2013.
If missing the whole clay-court season might seem too radical, it would be equally hard to see Murray committing next year to anything more than the Masters events in Madrid and Rome, plus the French Open.
There are other periods when Murray might also consider cutting back. In February he has usually played either indoors in Rotterdam or outdoors in Dubai, but in future he might prefer not to compete between the Australian Open and the “Sunshine Double” of Indian Wells and Miami in March.
The Aegon Championships at Queen’s Club and Wimbledon are likely to remain, but one of the Masters Series tournaments in Canada and Cincinnati in August might be sacrificed in the build-up to the US Open.
Until now the main reason why top players have generally competed in all eight of the year’s mandatory Masters Series tournaments has been the world ranking system. If you miss one of the mandatory events, you can’t replace it with points from another tournament.
Those rules are relaxed for older players, but the fact that Murray could therefore juggle his tournament commitments in order to help with his ranking points tally is unlikely to figure in his thinking. The days when his position in the world rankings was a significant factor for him are now surely in the past.
Until the end of this summer’s French Open, Murray should remain in the world’s top 50, though he will fall from his current position of No.19. With Wimbledon entries closing before the end of Roland Garros, he will have no trouble gaining direct entry, though is likely to be outside the world’s top 150 when the grass-court season starts.
Thereafter, if necessary, Murray could use a “protected” world ranking to gain direct entry to tournaments such as the US Open. By the end of the year, he will be hoping that his ranking will be high enough not only to get him into the 2019 Australian Open but also, perhaps, to earn a place among the seeds.
For now, just playing again at the highest level will be an achievement.