Murray set for return at the Queen’s Club doubles
● Breakthrough in Scot’s hip injury return as he enters top tournament with Lopez
Andy Murray will be back on a tennis court in 13 days’ time for a competitive match.
It was revealed yesterday that he had entered the doubles at the Fever-tree Championships at Queen’s Club with Spaniard Feliciano Lopez.
That means the Scot will be playing again only four and a half months after surgery to “resurface” his right hip
Murray said :“I am really excited to return to the match court for the first time since my surgery.
“Queen’s has always been a special place for me and it’s the perfect place to return.
“It’s where I won my first ATP match, my first title in Britain and on grass, and it’s been my most successful tournament overall.
“I’m not yet ready to return to the singles court, but I’ve been pain-free for a few months now. I’ve made good progress in training and on the practice court, and this is the next step for me as I try to return to the tour.”
When he hobbled out of the Australian Open, beaten in the first round at the star t of the year, the chances of him ever coming back seemed slim and yet Murray never gave up hope of a return.
His role model was Bob Bryan, the American former No 1 doubles specialist, who also had hip resurfacing surgery.
Bryan was back competing at grand slam level after five months and, seven months into his come back, he was back winning titles with his twin brother Mike.
The resurfacing operation differs from a total hip replacement in that instead of removing the whole of the top of the femur and replacing it with a metal ball joint, the surgeon shaves down the top of the bone, fits a metal cap over it and places a metal cup in the socket part of the joint.
Double Wimbledon singles champion Murray had the op at the end of January and the information from his camp since has been limited but cautiously optimistic. Murray, who also won the US Open in 2012, had the primary aim of curing the constant – and at times excruciating – pain in hi ship. The proc ed urec ertainly did that but then, at the end of March, the 32-year-old was seen hitting gently against a practice wall at the Oxshott Sports Club.
Suddenly a comeback was looking more of a possibility than a dream and Murray posted a video on Instagram on Saturday of him hitting a serve on a grass court, boosting hopes that he would soon be seen back on the circuit.
The S cot had been dealing with the deteriorating hip problem for several years but, it was during the French Open semi-final in 2017, that the injury went from manageable to unbearable.
He reached the quarterfinals at Wimbledon that year as defending champion but was knocked out by Sam Querrey of the USA in five sets.
He took six months off after that in the hope that rest and rehab would cure the prob - lem but, by January 2018, was forced to resort to minor surgery. When that did not work either, it looked as if his career was over. However, the latest op has changed all that.
There is a certain smugness around Roland Garros, a hint of the I-told-you-sos. That Johanna Konta is back in a grand slam quarter-final after two tough years seems to have taken nobody by surprise.
But the fact that she has managed to do it at the French Open on clay, her least successful surface over recent years, has the great and the good licking their lips.
Today, she plays Sloane Stephens on the main show court. She is the talk of the town as she faces last year’s finalist and the US Open champion of 2017. On paper, Konta would be the favourite– they have played twice before and Konta has won both times. But Stephens on clay in a grand slam is a different prospect to the woman Konta faced in Rome nearly three weeks ago.
Dimitri Zavialoff, below left, the coach to Britain’s No 1, has been credited with turning her career around in the eight months they have been together and yet, to hear him talk, it sounds as if he has done little at all.
“I think when a decision comes from a player it is more valuable to the player than if it’s reproducing something that somebody is telling them,” he said, inadvertently talking himself out of a job. “I really like the player to make their own choices and also it’s so difficult to know how a player is during a match and I prefer the longterm idea of helping in some practice and then maybe the player will use what we are trying to do – or not – but because of Jo, her own decisions are the best.”
Yet, the quietly spo - ken Frenchman looks to be the perfect match for his charge. Like K on ta, he does not like to give to o much away in public, but like Konta, his belief in what he is doing never wavers. And his belief in K on ta knows no bounds.
“For me she is a champion definitely so she already has it,” he said. “If she wins the tournament or not, who knows?”
Arantxa Sanchez Vic a rio, three times the winner at Roland Garros, is not at all surprised that Konta finds herself in her first Paris quarter-final. Everyone has always known that the world No 26 is both a great athlete and a great striker of the ball and that she is putting that together on clay strikes Sanchez Vicario as perfectly normal. “I’m not surprised,” she said. “I think she has the game to be able to play well on clay–I just think she has to believe it, that she can do well and she is doing it right now.
“She has no pressure because she is not a contender, nobody is talking about her so she has no pressure, so that helps her to play very well her game. Her game is suiting very well the clay, she’s having more patience, she has more variety so I’m not surprised that she is doing well.”
But Stephens, too, has a game that works on clay. She moves well, she defends well and she can, on her day, hit winners to a band playing. That makes player such as Martina Navratilova and Lindsay Davenport believe that she is the favourite for today and that, should she win, she is the favourite from the bottom half of the draw to reach the final.
“Jo has to play a solid match because Sloane defends so well,” Navratilo - va said. “Jo has to play a really solid match and pick the right shots to go for it. If she goes for too much, too soon, that will be trouble, and if she waits too long, then also Sloane can go on the offensive too. Sloane has got bigger weapons: she has got a bigger forehand than Jo and she moves better but Jo is more solid on both sides.”
The weather forecast is not good for today and humidity and rain will slow the conditions down considerably. When Konta walloped Donna Vekic on Sunday, the temperatures were in the 30s and the courts were quick – life will be harder today. “Sloane’s going to get a lot of balls back into play,” Davenport said. “With the conditions. I think that helps Sloane, slows it down a little bit for her, but who knows. If Konta gets hot and is hitting her spots, I feel like she could beat anyone. But Sloane is tough out on these courts.”
The favourite for the title, though, is still Simona Halep, the defending champion. She took only 45 minutes to demolish Iga Swiatek, the 18-yearold from Poland who won the Wimbledon junior title last year, 6-1, 6- 0. Swiatek was allowed to win only 21 points in her brief spell on court.
Halep will play Amanda Animisova of the United States for a place in the semi-final while Madison Keys, the 6-2, 6-4 winner over Katerina Siniakova, will take on Australia’s Ash Barty. Barty took 90 minutes to beat Sofia Kenin, the woman who stunned Serena Williams on Saturday, 6-3, 3-6, 6-0.
“I think she has the game to be able to play well on clay – I just think she has to believe it, that she can do well and she is doing it right now. She has no pressure because she is not a contender, nobody is talking about her so she has no pressure, so that helps her to play very well her game”
ARANTXA SANCHEZ VICARIO