Three-time grand slam champion Andy Murray believes he is heading in the right direction after losing in the first round of the Winston-Salem Open.
Murray, who is still on the comeback from injury, went out 7-6(8), 7-5, to Tennys Sandgren. Despite the loss, there were positives in the match as he battled on the court for more than two hours. During the first set he remained unbroken, but was edged out in the tiebreaker. However, in the second the Brit dropped serve three times as Sangren held his nerve to close out the match. Overall, Murray won 72% of his first service points and saved four out of the seven break points he faced against the world No.73.
This week was only the second time Murray had contested a singles match on the ATP Tour since January. The 32-year-old underwent hip resurfacing surgery earlier this season and has said he is now ‘pain-free.’ He began his return in June by focusing on doubles matches to begin with before resuming his singles campaign last week at the Western and Southern Open in Cincinnati, where he lost in the first round to Richard Gasquet.
“Some things were a bit better today, I think. I was hitting the ball a bit cleaner than I did in Cincinnati. It’s quite a different match-up, so the movements and the way the points are getting played is quite a bit different to last week, but probably from the back of the court I played a little bit cleaner than I did last week, which was good.” Murray said after his match with Sandgren.
“I feel like I moved fairly well to some drop shots, which maybe last week I wasn’t running to to, so there was some good things there, but there’s also some stuff I’d like to do better.”
It was a later than expected start to Murray’s match. He was scheduled to take on Sangren at 19:00 local time, but rain delayed their match by three hours. In the end, their clash finished at 12:25am.
“I was fine playing tonight, but obviously it was unfortunate with the conditions and stuff like they were today. But it was better for me to play today.” He said.
Eager to return back to his top form, the former world No.1 has hinted that he may return back to the Challenger tour in order to build up his game. Should he do that, it would be the first time he has played at that level since October 2005. An option could be to play a Challenger event prior to the start of the Asian swing.
“I’m quite aware of sort of where I’m at just now and what my level is. It’s competitive at this level but it needs to be better,” Murray told the atptour.com.
“Maybe I need to play a level down to get some matches and build my game up a little bit before I start playing on the Tour again.”
Murray’s conqueror Sandgren will take on second seed Denis Shapovalov in the last 16 on Tuesday.
