ANXIOUS ANDY
Murray on edge for Wimbledon doubles return
ANDY MURRAY admits he will be feeling ‘nervous’ when he makes his return to competitive action at Wimbledon for the first time in two years today.
The Scot, whose importance to British tennis was only emphasised further yesterday as Kyle Edmund and Heather Watson crashed out in the second round of their respective singles events, will make his long-awaited return in the men’s doubles when he and Frenchman Pierre-Hugues Herbert take on Ugo Humbert and Marius Copil.
Murray has also formed a dream team with Serena Williams in the mixed, with the superstar pair drawn against Germany’s Andreas Mies and Chilean Alexa Guarachi in their opening match, likely to take place tomorrow.
Despite having two singles titles under his belt at SW19, the former world No1 Murray confessed he will still feel a flutter in the stomach when he walks out on court again this afternoon.
‘It will be exciting to get back out there,’ said the
32-year-old, who practised with Herbert at Aorangi Park yesterday.
‘I feel pretty relaxed now, but I am sure on the way to the court or in the morning, I will be pretty nervous — but nerves are good. Hopefully, it means I will play some good tennis.’
Murray, who claimed that it was the Williams camp who had made the initial approach about their box-office partnership, said he was not going to allow such a once-in-a lifetime opportunity to pass him by.
‘I was talking to my wife about it, with everything that has gone on in the last couple of years, you don’t know what’s coming next, you don’t know what’s around the corner,’ he said.
‘The opportunity of playing with Serena, arguably one of the best players of all time and one of the biggest female athletes ever, it’s something I might never get another chance to do. And, potentially, I might not play mixed doubles again.
‘If I am going to do it once, the chance to play with her is obviously brilliant and not something I expected to happen.’
Murray confirmed that the opportunity only came up in the last couple of days after their respective coaches spoke, and he hopes to be able to practise with Williams for the first time tomorrow ahead of their match.
‘Delgy (his coach Jamie Delgado) had a message from Patrick (Williams’ coach Mouratoglou) asking if I was fixed up for doubles and would it be of interest to play with Serena. We chatted about it for a couple of days.
‘I knew she had some trouble with her knee this year and, from both sides, we wanted to see how her (singles) match went before making a final call on it.
‘She felt fine yesterday and I saw her briefly today and she looks like she’s up for it.
‘It should be good. We will try and get on court together, probably not tomorrow because we are both playing, but maybe the day after.’
It will be 723 days since Murray last stepped out on a Wimbledon court, having pulled out on the eve of the tournament last year — and it is something he did not think was possible when he went for his make-or-break hip surgery in January,
‘I was not expecting to play Wimbledon this year,’ he said. ‘With every week that passed I started to feel better. Obviously I wanted to play here and if I had the chance I would have liked to play singles, but that wasn’t really given as an option by my team.
‘I am happy with the decision because I am happy just playing.’ If all goes to plan in the men’s and mixed doubles, Murray’s bionic hip could get quite a test in the next 11 days, with the prospect of him playing a maximum 12 matches.
‘The only way to find out is to do it, it’s a good problem to have, right?’ said the Scot.
Looking long term, the next week will be an interesting signpost if his schedule gets congested.
‘Sometimes doubles gets a bit of a hard time and people think it’s almost easy in comparison to singles,’ he said.
‘Best of five doubles is tough on the body as well and I need to do everything right — eating, recovering, stretching, doing all my normal warm-ups and not just think: “Oh, it’s doubles, I’ll be fine, I can get away with not doing all that stuff”.’