Novak toils as Andy gears up for return

ANDY MURRAY plays his first proper match in five weeks today, and will be desperately hoping to avoid the fate that so nearly befell Novak Djokovic on the Riviera yesterday.

Gilles Simon served for the match against the wobbly world No 2 in the Monte Carlo Rolex Masters, but did not have the nerve to o inflict another defeatt on the Serb.

Simon broke in the deciding set to lead 5-4 but then threw in a slew of unforced errors to allow his quarry to o escape with a 6-3, 3--6, 7-5 second round victory. ctory.

The Frenchman has hadd a poor year and for Djokovic, who made copious unforced errors, it will be a concern that he struggled so much on the courts adjacent to his home, where he practises all the time. Murray is also in a state of uncertainty ahead of the most important part of the season. Like Djokovic, he has not played a regular ATP Tour match since Indian Wells in March, where he lost in the second round to Vasek Pospisil. Since then he has had similar elbow problems to the Serb, but has passed himself fit to face big- servingser Gilles Muller this afternoon. TThis is the point where last year Murray began to pick uup the ranking points that carried him to world No 1 ( he reached the semi-finals here in Monte Carlo), so the prepressure is on more than it has been so far thithis season. The 29-year-old Scot has still been icing his elbow this week but at least he now feels fit for the challenge, having tested it against Roger Federer in a charity exhibition last week. ‘When I first had the injury, I had to take two, two and a half weeks off serving,’ he said. ‘But the elbow has reacted well so I feel good about it.’

There will be two Brits one after the other on the main Court Rainier III, with Murray’s match to be followed by Kyle Edmund against Rafael Nadal.

There is no more difficult task in the game than facing Nadal in Monte Carlo. The Spaniard is trying to become the first man in history to win any ATP event 10 times. ‘I’ve played Novak three times, Andy twice, Stan Wawrinka, Milos Raonic,’ said Edmund. ‘It’s another top 10 opportunity for me and a chance to see what I can do.’

lJO KONTA has a one-in-20 chance of being Maria Sharapova’s first opponent on her muchanticipated comeback in Stuttgart next week, after the British No 1 was given a late wildcard.

Konta was due to skip the Porsche Grand Prix, where Sharapova is making her return after a 15-month suspension for a doping offence, but requested a belated entry because she missed the WTA event in Charleston with injury.