Gilbert says it will take a year for Murray to flourish

THE shock of new is unmistakeable as the final Grand Slam of the tennis year nears, Not only will the US Open be streamed exclusively on Amazon Prime for the first time, Flushing Meadow’s secondary arena, Louis Armstrong, has been upholstered with a retractable roof, with players in the main draw subject to a basketball-style 25-second shot clock for the first time.

The variation from the norm doesn’t end there, though. If it is hardly new that the three men who bring 50 Grand Slam titles to the party – No 1 seed Rafa Nadal, No 2 seed Roger Federer and No 6 seed Novak Djokovic – are favourites for the title, and for the first time since last year’s Wimbledon, Andy Murray (right) is set to feature in Grand Slam action.

While the Scot has thought better of subjecting his body to the rigours of best-of-five play at least three times before as he works his way back from a hip operation, if body and mind are willing the world No 378 will return to a Grand Slam match court for the first time for 14 months at the start of next week, an event which he enters on the strength of his protected ranking. He could land any of the usual suspects as early as the first round.

As much as the competitive fire will always burn away, his former coach Brad Gilbert – now a pundit on espn. co.uk – feels success for the Scot would be managing to navigate his way through the early stages of the tournament. As far as his route back to the top of the sport goes, that is a longterm process which could take 12 months or more.

“He needs a full year of being healthy, playing a lot, to see what he can do,” said Gilbert. “That is first and foremost. He is obviously at the mercy of the draw, he could play Rafa, he could play Federer, Novak, just because of how low ranked he is. That makes it difficult to project. He isn’t – all of a sudden – going to become the kind of guy that is going to start thinking ‘okay, maybe I can just win a couple of games’,” the American added. “He’ll be hoping he gets a decent draw, he eases into the tournament by getting through the first week… and then goes from there.

“He clearly didn’t want to play two matches in a day, finishing at 3am in the morning [in Washington], that was a tough week for him. But you don’t know where you are until you win 7-5 in the fifth then have to put yourself in a position to play another match a day later. These questions will be easier to answer three months down the line.”