No.1 surge hit champ’s court form says Lendl
BUBLIK’S SO BUBBLY
ALEXANDER BUBLIK got his first taste of Centre Court yesterday and admitted he will be nervous facing Andy Murray. But the Kazakh, 20 (right) does not lack confidence and is known for his trick shots. He said: “My game is unpredictable. I don’t even know what I’m going to do!” Bublik thought his chance of a Wimbledon debut had gone after losing to Daniel Brands in qualifying. He said: “I was so down I was even crying. I’d never cried after matches. Then I go to Starbucks and my father texted me, ‘You’re playing Andy Murray’. “I’m, like, ‘Ha! Of course not’. And he’s like, ‘No, you’re playing Andy’. “I open up the draw and I see my name next to Andy and my phone just fell out of my hand. For 30 minutes my head was shaking. “I never got a lucky loser in my life. I was actually thinking I was the unluckiest guy on tour. “I’m very excited to open up the stadium with Andy. It’s going to be great.” IVAN LENDL reckons Andy Murray’s troubled campaign is down to his reduced Christmas training camp.
The Wimbledon holder may have to retain his title to still be world No.1 heading into the American hard court section of the season.
But with poor results and injury problems ravaging his year so far, Murray’s hopes of a third SW19 success appear slim on the eve of the Championships.
And coach Lendl fears the British ace has been a victim of his own success – after his unstoppable surge to the top of the rankings in the second half of 2016 prevented him completing a full pre-season at his Florida base.
Asked if Murray’s fitness problems stemmed from doing too much training in December, Lendl responded by claiming that, if anything, it was the opposite.
The eight-time Grand Slam champion said: “I thought the block in Miami was a little too short. It started late because of what happened at the O2 and so on.
“I think Andy played a lot of matches last year to reach his goal of getting to No.1, which he achieved.
“But part of the letdown is because of the amount of matches. Once you’ve played so many matches, you don’t put enough training in.”
As Murray, 30, won event after event from Wimbledon onwards – and overtaking Novak Djokovic as the best player on the planet became a genuine possibility – he had little option but to carry on playing and winning.
Lendl, who was world No.1 for 270 weeks in the mid-1980s, added: “You play five matches in a week, then you get on a flight to the next tournament – and so on and on.
“It’s difficult to put in any training for most of that time.”
Murray’s grass court preparations this summer have been brief. He lost in round one at Queen’s while a sore hip ruled him out of two planned warm-up matches at Hurlingham last week.
With that in mind the Centre Court king, seeded one for the first time, may not be in the best of moods when he begins his defence against qualifier Alexander Bublik tomorrow.
But if that means Murray is letting off steam by letting rip at his entourage, Lendl, 57, could not care less.
He said: “Andy needs to get his energy out and as long as he can focus on the next point it doesn’t matter to me much.
“As long as he does this and he can dissect what happened and then focus forward, it’s okay!”