Murray signs up for another tournament as he bids to bounce back

ANDY Murray has added another tournament to his 2019 schedule after signing up for the Open Sud de France in Montpellier in February.

The former world number one only played six tournaments this year following hip surgery before calling an early end to his season in September in an effort to play a fuller schedule next year.

He will begin his campaign at the Brisbane International, the tournament he pulled out of in January before deciding to go under the knife, as a warm-up to the Australian Open.

The French event, which is being staged in Montpellier, begins on February 5, while the tournament director of the Open 13 in Marseille later in the month revealed last week that Murray will also play there.

Murray, pictured right, wrote on Facebook: “Lots of great memories playing indoors in France, looking forward to playing Open Sud de France in Montpellier for the first time next year.”

A caveat should be that Murray, whose ranking remains a lowly 263, entered a number of tournaments in 2017 that he subsequently did not play, but there are reasons to be optimistic. The 31-year-old has been spending a lot of time working with a specialist in Philadelphia as he bids to return to something like his best form, and a recent Instagram post simply showed a tunnel with light at the end.