Former world No.1 Andy Murray is staying on the cautious side ahead of his planned return at the Brisbane International later in the week.
The Brit is set to play in his first ATP tournament for six months. Murray hasn’t played a competitive match since his quarter-final loss at Wimbledon due to a hip injury. His attempt to stage a comeback at the US Open was unsuccessful, ending his 2017. This time round, he has higher hopes about his ability to play at the Brisbane International.
“Unless something happens the next couple of days that goes wrong, I don’t see myself not playing because of my hip right now,” second seed Murray said.
“I need to play matches to see exactly where it’s at. Right now the hip is the only part of the body that is any concern.”
Murray belongs to a group of elite players trying to stage a comeback from injury. Novak Djokovic recently pulled out of Doha due to ongoing elbow problems and Kei Nishikori continues to recover from his wrist injury. It is a situation that is becoming all too familiar of the men’s tour and one Murray has urged others to address.
“I’m aware of the situation at the end of last year (2017) especially because for tennis and the sport it’s not good,” he said.
“I don’t think that’s a good thing and is something that should be looked at to understand why, what the reason for that is. I’m hoping that that doesn’t continue happening.”
To avoid further injury problems in the future, Murray has come up with his own strategy. A reduced schedule. The approach follows in the footsteps of Roger Federer, who won two grand slam titles in 2017 despite skipping the entire clay court swing. During his last full season in 2016, Murray played a total of 88 matches across 19 different tournaments (including the Davis Cup).
“I’d want to play as long as I could and to physically do that giving yourself breaks, especially as you start to get older, I think is very important and something that I’ll be looking to do for however long I keep playing.”
Murray’s absence from tennis has made him realise how much the sport means to him. His career so far has seen him win three grand titles and spend a total of 41 weeks as world No.1. Some might expect him to be hungry for more high profile success when he returns, which he is. Although the 30-year-old also openly admits that he would be content not returning to the top of the Emirates rankings again.
“I would love it to be No. 1 in the world level, but I just want to play,” Murray explains.
“When that’s kind of taken away from you, you realise how important it is. I might feel like I’m playing really poorly on some days, but I might still be good enough to beat top 30, top 40 in the world, which is still a really, really high level.”
Only time will tell to see how Murray’s hip holds up. A two-time champion of the Brisbane International, he is set to start his 2018 campaign against either Ryan Harrison or Leonardo Mayer in the second round.
