Nadal one step away from another Paris triumph as Murray eyes SW19 return

HOPES are rising that Andy Murray will be fit enough to play Wimbledon after encouraging reports about how he has been shaping up in practice. According to one witness, Murray is moving ‘surprisingly well’ after being out of the game for nearly a year and having only returned to hitting balls barely a week ago.

A separate source close to the 31year-old Scot’s camp has indicated that his sparring sessions have gone sufficiently well to shift expectations that, barring further setbacks, he could take his place in the draw for Wimbledon, which starts on July 2.

Last Tuesday the twice All England Club champion pulled out of the ATP event in Rosmalen which starts tomorrow, but he remains in the field for the Fever Tree Championships at London’s Queen’s Club taking place next week.

The official word from his management is that he will make a decision around Wednesday about his participation, and a return there has not been ruled out. However, the 32man field at Queen’s will be exceptionally strong. While Murray will not be seeded at Wimbledon, and therefore at the mercy of the draw, there is a decent chance of easier early-round draws at SW19, with a large number of players far less comfortable on the grass than he is.

There are also several exhibition events around London in the week prior to The Championships which would be happy to accommodate him if he wanted a competitive build-up.

After a succession of withdrawals, his return would be welcome news for British tennis fans, who have not seen him since the Wimbledon quarter-finals last year, apart from in a charity match in Glasgow against Roger Federer in November.

Federer is more assuredly on the comeback trail and was yesterday placed in the draw as top seed for the Mercedes Cup in Stuttgart, where he will play either a qualifier or Germany’s Mischa Zverev after a first round-bye.

The 36-year-old Swiss has not played since losing to young Australian Thanasi Kokkinakis in the second round of the Miami Open on March 24. For the second year in succession he opted to miss the whole clay-court season but has been busy preparing on hard and grass courts.

Dan Evans’s run at the Surbiton Challenger came to an end when he was beaten 6-4, 7-6 by France’s Jeremy Chardy, the world No 86 who has spent much of his career ranked inside the top 50.

Making the semi-finals has, however, won him a ‘Special Exempt’ place in the main draw of Nottingham’s Nature Valley Open next week.

Rafael Nadal will today attempt to win his 11th French Open title when he takes on Dominic Thiem, the player from the younger generation who has looked the most likely to one day succeed him.It will be a first Grand Slam final for the 24-yearold Austrian with the dashing single-handed backhand, seeking to emulate his compatriot Thomas Muster, who won the title in Paris in 1995.

Stopping Nadal would constitute a huge upset, but there is no doubt that he has been slightly more vulnerable en route to the final than he was a year ago.

In 2017 he lost only 35 games and no sets in his seven matches when taking the title with consummate ease, compared to dropping 48 already this year and one set.

So Thiem, seeded seven, may feel that there is an opportunity here, but Nadal’s far greater experience means that over five sets a wait for the changing of the guard is still by far the more likely outcome.