Andy Murray says he is fully fit and can beat the world’s best players following his emphatic first round win at Wimbledon.
Murray, who is unseeded in this year’s draw, dropped only four games in his opening match against Ryan Peniston on Tuesday. Making it the second more dominant match he has played (in terms of games dropped) at Wimbledon in his entire career. Coming into this year’s grasscourt major he has already won 10 out of 11 games played on the grass but all of those were on the lower-level Challenger circuit.
The Brit hasn’t reached the second week at Wimbledon since 2017 which was before he underwent two hip operations that enabled him to prolong his career. Now at the age of 36, he says he has no concerns about how his body or tennis might hold up as the tournament progresses.
“I’m playing well enough to beat most of the players in the draw if I play well,” Murray said during his press conference. “Physically I feel absolutely fine right now.”
“I hope my matches don’t go on that long. If they do, I’ve prepared well enough to be able to deal with them.”
In his latest match, one eagle-eye journalist picked up on a slight change in the service motion of the former world No.1 who revealed that he made the adjustment after ‘messing around’ in practice. He liked what he saw and has now chosen to stick with it.
“I wasn’t trying to get less arch in my back. I was just trying to take less of a step,” he explained of the change. “I used to sort of sway quite far back on my serve with my back leg, also the arm I toss the ball from would come back with me quite far. So I just tried to simplify the beginning of the serve, and that was it.”
Whilst the Murray camp is high in confidence, he is not getting too ahead of himself just yet. Awaiting him in the next round will be either fifth seed Stefanos Tsitsipas or former US Open champion Dominic Thiem. Their match was halted due to rain and will be completed on Wednesday.
“My mind will be on the next match on Thursday. Thiem and Tsitsipas both have great pedigree. Both played extremely well in the slams over the years. Very experienced.” He commented.
Should Murray prevail he will win his 200th Grand Slam match.
