Murray set to miss Miami Open return
When the Miami Open trumpeted its player field yesterday, there was one high-profile absentee. Ranked at No128 in the world, Andy Murray is at least 50 places too low to make the first cut of automatic entrants.
As a two-time champion, Murray would no doubt be granted a wild card to play in Miami in six weeks. But those close to the camp suggest there is little prospect of him appearing at what was once known as tennis’s fifth major – a tournament which is usually a staging post between the Australian Open and the European summer.
Earlier this month, Murray’s former clay-court consultant, Alex Corretja, suggested that the Scotsman “should aim for the grasscourt season especially and, why not, again the Olympics”. This seems like the most realistic schedule, assuming that he can recover from the pelvicbone bruise he first reported after November’s Davis Cup.
Murray’s latest injury has limited him to one competitive match in almost four months, and it seems likely that it is linked to the metal ball and socket inserted in his right hip just over a year ago.
In Murray’s absence, the top British male of the moment is Dan Evans, who continued his excellent start to the season yesterday with a superb 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 comeback win over the burly Russian, Karen Khachanov – who was ranked inside the top 10 as recently as October. The win earns him a quarter-final spot at the indoor event in Rotterdam. Should he win that, he will climb into the world’s top 30 for the first time. A couple of hours earlier, in St Petersburg, British No1 Johanna Konta was beaten in straight sets by world No59 Oceane Dodin.