WIMBLEDON PREVIEW
The two-time champion will need to be at his very best
All the uncertainty over Andy Murray’s participation at Wimbledon boils down to one thing – his champion’s mentality.
Murray is not the type of person to enter a tournament just to get match practice, or to avoid letting people down.
That’s not in his DNA.
If Andy Murray enters an event, he will be aiming to win it. Merely taking part is not in his mind-set.
That’s a champion’s approach. He’s not interested in winning a couple of rounds and bowing out gracefully.
Murray is nothing if not a fighter. He wants to win every game.
His loss to Kyle Edmund at Eastbourne will have shocked him. I don’t think he would have expected that.
I don’t believe all the stuff about ‘low expectations’.
My feeling is that Murray would expect to beat Edmund on a grass court, so that defeat might be the key to his delay in confirming his place in the Wimbledon draw.
I have to admit that Murray’s performance against Nick Kyrgios at Queen’s Club was pretty amazing for someone who was playing his first match for 12 months.
Until he got tired, Andy looked quite sharp, although some of his shots lacked real penetration.
Murray and his team keep things very secretive, but I gathered from one insider that his decision to play at Queen’s was ‘touch and go’.
So nothing would surprise me when it comes to Andy Murray. He’s a difficult person to read.
He could decide to walk away from the sport today and it wouldn’t detract from an unbelievable career.
Andy Murray is someone very special.
To win three Grand Slam titles – two at Wimbledon – two Olympic gold medals, the Davis Cup, and
becomeworld No. 1 is a magnificent achievement.
Can Andy reach those heights again? Opinions are mixed among everybody I speak to.
Personally, I have my doubts, purely because of the way Murray plays.
His game is based so much on movement and making his opponent play one more ball.
Andy’s style is not based on big weapons, and winning quick points. His game is a war of attrition, and for that I believe he has to be physically 100%.
I’ve heard Andy say that if he can get back to 95% fitness, he will be happy.
Sadly, 95% will not win any Grand Slam titles.
That is the dilemma for the man from Dunblane. Can he actually achieve total fitness?
I would love to think that Murray could reach those levels, and I think that deep down he has been working towards that.
Re h a b i l i t a t i o n after major surgery is tough. It’s painful. It’s brutal. It drives you crazy when you are stuck in the gym and all you want to do is get back on a tennis court.
Andy has pushed himself through many hard months of re-hab.
It would only make sense for a p l a ye r w i t h s o ma n y m a j o r achievements under his belt to do that if he really believed he could get back to his best.
That’s why the Scot has played his cards close to his chest in the last week.
If he takes to the court to play Benoit Paire in the first round, it will be because he believes he can go all the way.
Meanwhile, Kyle Edmund has impressed me this year. He has improved so much.
I’d like to have been a fly on the wall at Edmund’s training camp at the end of last year.
Before then, I’d had my doubts about whether Kyle could make a breakthrough. But he emerged a totally different player at the Australian Open.
He jumped a level in a matter of weeks, and whatever he did in that period, I’d like some of it!
Kyle came out in Melbourne with a more consistent serve, a stronger backhand, far better movement around the court, and – even more importantly – far greater confidence in his whole approach.
Edmund matured physically and mentally in the space of a few weeks.
It’s staggering to me. He had appeared rather fragile in so many ways last year, but now he looks strong and controlled.
Kyle has developed something of an aura around him. People don’t like playing him because he has huge weapons in his forehand and serve.
I see him on his way into the world’s top 10. He might even cause a shock or two at Wimbledon.