Winning US Open is not realistic aim, says Murray
Scot will focus on testing recovery from surgery ‘Once my body is right, I can compete at the top’
It was the dog that did not bark in the night. Look at the practice schedule at Flushing Meadows yesterday and you would have seen entries for Federer, Roger; Nadal, Rafael; Djokovic, Novak. But Murray, Andy? There was no sign.
This is not to say that there is any doubt about Murray’s participation in next week’s US Open. Merely that he is running a different sort of campaign this year; one that is more about testing his physical limits than competing for the title.
As a result, he devoted last week to what he called “light practising,” and then gave his cranky right hip the whole of Friday off.
Even so, Murray still had to turn up at the Billie Jean King Tennis Centre yesterday to perform a round of media interviews. In a peculiar twist, his press conference was shifted to the all-new Louis Armstrong Stadium, where a couple of hundred fans sat in the stands and listened to his familiar lawnmower-engine drone.
They heard Murray cover a variety of subjects – from the new Davis Cup model (“I would have abstained if I had been voting”) to his recent bout of lachrymosity in Washington (“It was strange, because during the match, I wouldn’t have anticipated that’s how I would have felt at the end of it”).
On the key issue of his physical state, Murray mixed short-term pragmatism with long-term positivity. “It feels slightly different, this one,” he said, when asked about the prospect of playing his first slam in just over a year. “For the last 10 years or so I’ve been coming and trying to prepare to win the event. Whereas I don’t feel like that’s realistic for me this year.
“My expectation is to give my best effort in the matches. My tennis has been a bit stop-start because, after Washington, I took a few days off the court, then built back up again. But it’s getting better all the time. I just need to be on the court more consistently till the end of the year.”
Somebody in the assembled throng then seemed to ask Murray whether the way Federer, Nadal and Djokovic had all recovered from injuries to land majors in 2018 offered him extra encouragement. (I say “seemed” because the weird acoustics on Louis Armstrong Stamuch dium made it impossible to hear anyone but Murray – inconvenient for what was supposed to be a public question-and-answer session.) “I haven’t really looked at them so as an inspiration for a comeback,” replied Murray. “I’m trying to deal with the situation as best as I can myself. But I do feel that once my body is right again, which takes time when you haven’t played many matches in a year, I’m sure my level will be OK to get me competing at the top of the game again.”
Murray can at least be grateful to the US Open computer for throwing up Australia’s James Duckworth, the only man on the entry list with a lower world ranking than his own 378. He could have landed a big name, given that this is his first major as a non-seed since Wimbledon in 2006. But 26-year-old Duck-