Andy Murray has no intention of hitting the panic button after a first-round loss at Queen’s derailed his ambition to be seeded for Wimbledon.
The world No38 needed two wins in his final warm-up event for SW19 but was comfortably beaten 6-3 6-1 by No7 seed Alex de Minaur.
Despite the dent to his Wimbledon ambitions, Murray said: “After today… it’s easy to overreact. I lost to a good player and it was obviously very comfortable.
“But I only lost one set in Surbiton, was holding serve very comfortably, was moving well, hitting the ball good. There are a lot of positive signs there.
“The practices I had before those tournaments too with some good players… I was doing just fine. So, I’m comfortable with that. I know my level is there to compete with the top players. I just need to take a few days and get a good week, ten days’ work in, and sure I’ll be playing well on the first Monday of Wimbledon.”
Murray returns to Queen’s on Wednesday to team up with Cameron Norrie in the men’s doubles but said he had no intention of playing another tournament – be that Eastbourne or Hurlingham – ahead of Wimbledon.
The two weeks prior to Queen’s had been hugely positive with back-to-back title wins in Surbiton and Nottingham, albeit at challenger level.
On where his game is currently, he said: “I think the last few weeks there has been lots of positive things. I served very well across the two weeks. There are definitely some things I can do better but, at the same time, I have done lots of good things over the last couple of weeks as well. I want to keep going in that direction.”
Unseeded, Murray now finds himself at the mercy of the Wimbledon draw next week, knowing he could be pulled out to face a big name in his opening-round match.
Of that prospect, he said: “Some of the seeded players are maybe not that comfortable on the grass, so there’s some draws that are better than others. There are also guys that are not seeded but love the grass courts and it’s their favourite surface.”
