MURRAY AND DJOKOVIC READY FOR A FRESH START

THE careers of Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic have always been intertwined, and as the curtain goes up on the sport’s European spring there is no sign of any disentanglement. The world No 1 and No 2 yesterday pitched up at Monte Carlo’s Rolex Masters having overcome seemingly identical injuries, and both talking of new beginnings after underwhelming starts to the season. They have shared elbow problems that affected only their serve, and also spoken of having too little time to get over milestone achievements in their careers last season. They even have the same match record this year of 12-3. For Djokovic the milestone was winning the French Open, for Murray it was getting to world No 1 after a breakneck end to 2016 that saw him win 25 consecutive matches. In Murray’s case he concedes he should have taken things easier after clinching the top spot at the O2 Arena in November. ‘There are maybe some things I would have done a little bit differently,’ he said. ‘But it’s difficult — I have never been in that position that I was in at the end of the year. I had never played that much tennis and didn’t know exactly the right thing to do. Maybe if I was in the exact same position next year I would do some things differently in terms of the amount of time off or where I trained.’ He now believes that getting shingles post-Australia was a sign of being run down. ‘The shingles would explain that, yes,’ he said. ‘I think the elbow injury was nothing to do with what happened last year, the shingles would have been more likely but I feel fine now. I got ill in Miami and had some tests when I got back and everything was completely normal and now I feel great.’ Murray will face Tommy Robredo or Luxemburg’s Gilles Muller, and is tempering expectations due to the restrictions on his serve that were evident when he played Roger Federer in an exhibition a week ago. ‘I only really started serving as hard as I would hope to in a match two days ago,’ he said. ‘When I had the elbow scan in Miami, there was a lot of inflammation around the area. I don’t know if there was a tear or not. I have lots of tournaments coming up so I’m looking forward to it. Medium term, my expectations are high.’