At the end of another arduous British grass-court summer last year, Andy Murray departed Wimbledon frustrated. He had been defeated in the second round by the towering American John Isner, yet had not even done much wrong. Isner played a brilliant match, serving 38 aces, and the quality of his performance underlined one clear issue: Murray’s ranking.
As an unseeded player, Murray was at the complete mercy of the draw. Throughout the rest of the summer, he attempted to rectify that issue by piling tournaments on to his schedule – he immediately travelled to Rhode Island to compete in the Hall of Fame Open, the lowly tournament that ends the grass-court season. After the considerable feat of returning to the top 50, though, Murray could not push on and secure a top-32 spot.
On the eve of the Australian Open, his unseeded status handed him one of the toughest possible draws at the tournament. He will face Matteo Berrettini, last year’s semi-finalist and the 2021 runner-up at Wimbledon, in the first round.
Despite the difficult draw, Murray betrayed no frustration in his pre-tournament press conference. “Obviously a tough draw,” he said. “But I also feel like I’m in a much better place than where I was during any of the slams last year coming into it. I feel well prepared, I feel ready to play a top player early in the event, whereas maybe last year at times my game didn’t feel that great.”
There are fair reasons for his optimism. This Australian Open marks one of the few times in recent years that Murray has arrived at a grand slam tournament without any physical issue nestled in the back of his mind. For example, Murray’s grass-court season had started with a brilliant run to the final in Stuttgart but he sustained an abdominal injury during the third set of his match with Berrettini, which halted his momentum heading to Wimbledon. During the US hard-court swing, Murray struggled badly with cramp in every warm-up tournament.
The source of Murray’s confidence rests in a solid off-season. He had finished the year with perhaps one of his worst performances over the past four years, losing to Gilles Simon in the Frenchman’s final tournament, after serving for an easy win. Afterwards, Murray expressed dissatisfaction at his training and preparation. Now he feels he is moving as well as he has done since his hip surgery.
“There was some stuff in my game I was struggling with for large parts of last year, so obviously I worked on that a lot in the off-season,” he said. “It’s the first time in a while where I’ve had six, seven weeks of work uninterrupted by anything, so I feel like I was able to make some improvements in the off-season and feel a bit more comfortable with my game.”
One clear difference is that Murray has been accompanied in Australia by Ivan Lendl, his coach. Since rejoining Murray’s team midway through last year, Lendl’s travel had been limited and he had largely coached Murray remotely. Murray also says that his body is in far better shape now than in 2020 and 2021, years in which he suffered from countless injury niggles as his body got used to the presence of a metal hip in his anatomy.
“I do think that now my body is used to having the metal hip there,” he said. “I’m not getting so many aches and pains now, which is interesting, because if you talk about the ageing process, when I was 33 I was getting way more issues with my body than I’m getting now at 35 and a half, just because my body is used to the new hip.”
Whether Murray’s optimism will yield a positive result on Tuesday remains to be seen. Berrettini is still searching for rhythm himself, after undergoing hand surgery last year, contracting Covid on the eve of Wimbledon and pulling out of the final months of 2022 because of a foot injury. However, he is extremely difficult to play against, with huge weapons, considerable mental strength and a tendency to play his best tennis in grand slam tournaments.
The recent retirements of Roger Federer and Serena Williams have ensured that many will be looking to see which all-time great is next. Murray coolly brushed aside questions about retirement from Australian reporters during the Kooyong exhibition event last week, asserting that it wasn’t even on his mind.
At the start of a new season, Murray is healthy, hopeful, training well and still one of the best players in the world. Most of all, he still has the privilege and ability to work on his personal goals every day, while competing in front of crowds of 15,000 people. This is a period in his career to enjoy, because it will not be for ever; to try his best and then just see where it takes him.
