MURRAY BUZZING AT LAST
Battle with Nadal lifts his morale for French Open
IT WAS long past midnight when Andy Murray requested that he be allowed to slump into an armchair in the players’ lounge to offer his reflections on a heady night at the Foro Italico.
Nothing is so tiring in tennis than two hours and 40 minutes of relentless scrapping against Rafael Nadal on clay, but while the body was weary, there was little dejection in the spirit of the Wimbledon champion.
For it appears that, in the nick of time ahead of a period that sees two Grand Slams plus the Aegon Championships within six weeks, the Scot is finally within sight of recapturing the kind of form that is going to be required.
There were prolonged spells during a 1-6, 6-3, 7-5 Italian Open quarter-final defeat when we saw Murray’s best tennis in two years, and certainly the most accomplished since he beat Novak Djokovic in the Wimbledon final last summer.
It was enough for him to look forward to the start of Roland Garros a week today and declare himself ‘excited’ — not an adjective he comes up with too often, certainly not of late.
The reason is that he can see things falling in place on schedule, as he has marked down this stage of the season as the time that he would be running into form.
‘The first three months of the year were never going to be easy,’ he said. ‘And it’s also a point to remember that a lot has happened in the past two months aside from coming back from surgery.
‘It’s been a tricky few months. That was a tricky few weeks in March, but I was expecting to start playing better around this time, to start feeling physically better and be in a better place.’
The unexpected events to contend with that he refers to were the departure of his coach Ivan Lendl and the tragic death of Elena Baltacha, which impacted upon him last week in Madrid. After flying home yesterday, he is likely to attend her funeral tomorrow before turning his full attention to Paris.
As for the long climb from the operating table back to the highest echelon of the sport, he knew that was going to be hard. ‘I just think it’s almost impossible to come back and play your best tennis straight away,’ said Murray, 27.
‘You don’t just go flat out four weeks after surgery. I really only had a couple of weeks of full-on training before Australia and it takes time to play at that
level, it’s not easy and things still hurt. It takes time for everything to heal 100 per cent.
‘Tonight I felt I’m just about there but physically I can still get better and push myself harder. I’ll need to if I want to beat these top guys. Now there’s a big few months coming I can start to turn things up.
‘I feel like I’ve played some of my best tennis in the slams in recent years. A lot of that has been down to physical strength. I need to make sure I’m on it from the beginning of matches, no slow starts, I think I’ve got a good opportunity to do well in Paris.
‘I’m very excited to play the French Open, obviously I missed it last year and that was a very tough one, so I’m looking forward to going back.’
Murray is cutting it fine if he is to appoint a head coach before Roland Garros, especially as he has pointed out the risks of bringing someone in just a few days before such a crucial event. Yet he did not rule it out.
‘I’m going to speak to a few people. It depends a little bit how quick somebody might want to do the job. It’s not just about money or getting a contract, someone might say he really wants to do it and come straight away, and some people might want to make sure there’s a watertight contract in place before we start working — that depends on the person. It’s certainly not impossible.’
The sight of him playing Nadal off the court in the first set on Friday would have any prospective candidates salivating, but they would also know that this was the type of match Murray has generally played well in, dredging up his enormous natural talents when faced with one of the best.
Yet he still has only one win against a top-20 player since Wimbledon (a below par Jo-Wilfried Tsonga) and the slight shortage of belief that brings was evident when, by his own admission, he played a poor game when leading 4-2 in the decider.
But there were many heartening signs — it could be that a difficult nine months of his career is being consigned to the past.