Murray ready for action as he reports clean bill of health
● World No 1 in confident mood in Monte Carlo as he heads into his first competitive match since elbow injury
Andy Murray is confident he is ready to return to action at the Monte Carlo Masters following an elbow injury.
The world No 1 is set for a first competitive match since early March when he takes on Gilles Muller in the second round of the clay court tournament today.
Murray last played in Indian Wells and missed Great Britain’s Davis Cup defeat by France as he continued his recovery.
But the Scot believes he is now in good shape to resume the build-up towards the French Open, where he was runner-up in 2016, and defending his Wimbledon title this summer.
“I would not start the tournament unless I felt comfortable doing that (going full tilt),” said Murray. “I have only been really serving at my normal pace the last couple of days as I was trying to build it up slowly to time it right for the beginning of the tournament... and the elbow has been feeling better every day, so I am positive about that.”
Murray, who received a bye into the second round in Monte Carlo, added: “It is not going to be easy, the first tournament coming back after a while, but I am feeling good and hopefully I can do it.”
Luxembourg’s Muller, 33, defeated Tommy Robredo 6-2 6-2 in their first-round contest. Murray has won all his previous five matches against the world No 28.
Meanwhile, Novak Djokovic survived a second-round scare to beat Gilles Simon at the Monte-carlo Rolex Masters.
Simon served for the match at 5-4 in the third set but world No 2 Djokovic broke back before breaking again to secure victory in just over two and a half hours. Djokovic, pictured, winner of the event in 2013 and 2015, forced 16 break points in the match and took six of them, but lost five of the six he faced on his own serve.
Buthemadethebreakswhen they mattered and clinched victory from his first match point to progress 6-3, 3-6, 7-5.
Jo-wilfried Tsonga is out of the competition after losing to fellow Frenchman Adrian Mannarino.
Seventh seed Tsonga won the first set on a tie-break but the world No 56 battled back to win 6-7 (3/7) ,6-2, 6-3 to reach the third round. The tenth seed sailed through 7-5, 6-1 in 70 minutes.
In the day’s first-round action, 11th seed Lucas Pouille beat Ryan Harrison 6-2, 6-4..
Croatian Borna Coric, who won his first ATP Tour title on Sunday, suffered a 7-6 (7/3), 3-6, 6-3 defeat by Jeremy Chardy in a match that lasted two hours 42 minutes.
France’s world No 40, Benoit Paire, suffered a 6-2, 6-3 defeat by veteran Tommy Haas, now 655th in the rankings, while 16th seed Pablo Cuevas eased past Joao Sousa 6-3, 6-3.
Another couple of French players suffered early exits as Nicolas Mahut lost in straight sets to Karen Khachanov and Pierre-hugues Herbert was beaten 3-6, 6-2, 6-1 by Carlos Berlocq.
Also reaching the second round yesterday were Jiri Vesely, Paolo Lorenzi, Feliciano Lopez, Robin Haase and Jan-lennard Struff.