Murray back to winning ways at Queen’s Club
An emotional Andy Murray, back on the comeback trail following yet another injury setback, made a winning return to Queen's Club with victory over Benoit Paire
An emotional Andy Murray made a winning return to Queen's Club with victory over Benoit Paire at the cinch Championships.
The former world number one, back on the comeback trail following yet another injury setback, was playing his first singles match on grass since 2018.
After completing a routine 6-3 6-2 victory at the scene of five of his title wins, the Scot became tearful in his courtside interview.
He began: "The body is old. But I did quite well in terms of my movement and stuff.
"It was my first match on grass in three years, I've only played three or four practice sets in the build-up so didn't know how I was going to play or feel, so for a first match it was good.
"I love playing tennis," Murray added, before starting to well up. "Sorry," he continued. "Obviously competing is why you put in the hard work and in the last few years I haven't been able to do that as much as I'd like, so it's great to be out here and competing again."
The 66 minutes clearly meant the world to him. That was all it took for Andy Murray to complete his first singles match at Queen’s Club since 2018 and win his first match there since 2016. And when it was over, he could not help himself: he was in tears as he spoke to the BBC.
“Yeah, look, I love it; I love competing,” he managed to say before his voice cracked and he had to stop. The crowd roared theirsupportinthebackground ashecomposedhimself.“competing is why you put in all the hard work. The last few years I’venotgottodoasmuchofthat as I would have liked so, yeah, just great I’m out here and able to compete again.”
And compete he did. Sadly, his opponent, Benoit Paire, didn’t. Throwing in the occasional shot of brilliance but mainly producing an awful lot of dross, Paire showed all the competitive edge of a wet lettuce. But with all due respect to the world No 46, nobody cared. Yesterday was all about Murray as he scampered to a 6-3, 6-2 win.
In the lead-up to the match, Murray had warned that he was not sure if his body would cope with regular match play. In the moments before the match, his bladder warned that this was a very important test for the nervous Scot (four trips to the gents in 45 minutes as he prepared to step on court) but once he was playing, everyone could relax.
Any concerns about his movement on the lush grass were soon dispelled. They way he raced in to pick up a drop shot and fire back a winner in the opening game or ran hell for leather across the baseline to deliver a trademark hooked forehand winner to break serve in the fourth game allowed everyone simply to sit back and enjoy the show.
Now ranked No.124 in the world, the Scot is far from a perfect physical specimen. As he put it, “the body is old” and he still has to play through pain. But during yesterday’s exertions, his bionic right hip – the joint has been resurfaced with a metal ball and socket – was working well and the nagging left groin problems that have plagued him for the past three months were at an acceptable level.
“Although I had some discomfort in the groin, it was manageable and not affecting me enough to affect my performance,” he said. “It's about trying to get matches. It's all about just trying to feel as good as possible for the matches physically and then just trusting all of the work that you have done – which I have done a lot of.”
He will have to trust himself against Matteo Berrettini in his next outing. The Italian is the world No.9 and the top seed at Queen’s Club. That will a be a huge step up in class from yesterday’s encounter. But for Murray, it is all about enjoying the experience and letting the tennis happen. “I'm always telling myself, and maybe it's not the best mindset, but each match could be the last one that I play now,” he said. “I want to make the most of every match that I play and each tournament that I get the chance to compete in.”
Earlier British No 1 Dan Evans ended his losing streak at Queen's with a 6-4 6-4 win over Australian youngster Alexei Popyrin.
Evans and Murray will be hoping to still be in the tournament,andthebubble,when Englandandscotlandclashon Friday. The British duo could even meet in the quarter-finals on the same day.
Phil Mickelson has “shut off all the noise” in a bid to give himself the best chance to become just the sixth player to complete golf’s career grand slam in his “backyard”.
Hopes of Mickelson beating both Rory Mcilroy and Jordan Spieth in the race to join Ben Hogan, Gene Sarazen, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods in that exclusive club have been reignited.
The 50-year-old has a spring in his step again after becoming the game’s oldest major winner as he landed a sensational victory in last month’s US PGA Championship at Kiawah Island.
He’s never managed to get himself in the hunt in the US Open since it became the missing link on his major CV, but, having just pulled off one fairytale, Mickelson has his sights on another one in this week’s edition at Torrey Pines, close to his home city of San Diego.
“It's a unique opportunity because I've never won a US Open,” said Mickelson, who has finished second on a record six occasions in the USGA-RUN tournament. “It's in my backyard. I have a chance to prepare properly, and I wanted to put in the right work.
“So I've kind of shut off all the noise. I've shut off my phone. I've shut off a lot of the other stuff to where I can kind of focus on this week and really give it my best chance to try to play my best.
“Now, you always need some luck, you always need things to kind of come together and click, but I know that I'm playing well, and I just wanted to give myself every opportunity to be in play at my best.”
While Mickelson has won what is now the Farmers Insurance Open on the PGA Tour three times at Torrey Pines, he has recorded just one top-10 finish in 18 starts at the venue since changes were made to the course by Rees Jones in 2001.
“What's happened for me is I spent so many hours as a kid that, when the course was redesigned, all that local knowledge went away,” he said. “Granted, I've played out here a bunch since the redo, but I really haven't spent a lot of time to learn the nuances, and I did that early last week to see if I can get that local knowledge again."