Henman’s Murray doubt

Tim Henman fears playing five-set matches with limited recovery time ‘may be a step too far’ for andy murray at next week’s US Open.

murray (right) is set to play his first Grand Slam tournament since pulling out of last month’s Olympic singles event in Tokyo with a thigh injury.

The Scot faces Frances Tiafoe tonight in the second round of the WinstonSalem Open, having beaten noah Rubin 6-2, 6-0 in his opener on Sunday, and was encouraged by his movement during last week’s Cincinnati masters, where he was defeated in the second round by world no 13 Hubert Hurkacz.

‘murray’s recovery has been great,’

Henman told the Pa news agency. ‘i thought it was a very good win against Richard Gasquet who’s still a top-50 player, and against Hurkacz, one of the form players of the year, it was a tight match. ‘if the murray of today played the murray of the first round of Queen’s (last month), he beats him very easily. Things seem to be moving in the right direction — the biggest challenge is whether he can stay injury-free. ‘Can he compete in best-of-fiveset matches in slams and come back? That may be a step too far, but on the aTP tour (where all tournaments are best of three sets) i definitely think he can be competitive.’