Murray admits to being 'nervous' before Queen's return
| 2018 Fever-Tree Championships on the BBC |
|---|
| Venue: Queen’s Club, London Dates: 18-24 June |
| Coverage: Watch live on BBC Two, BBC iPlayer, BBC Red Button, Connected TVs, the BBC Sport website and app. |
Britain’s former world number one Andy Murray admits he will be nervous when he makes his competitive return from hip surgery in the Fever-Tree Championships at Queen’s next week.
The three-time Grand Slam winner, 31, will play for the first time in almost a year.
The Scot’s last competitive appearance was at Wimbledon last July, and he had surgery in January.
“There are a lot of doubts when you’ve not played for a long time,” he said.
“I’m expecting to be very nervous when I go back out there.
“Coming back from injury you’re always kind of second guessing yourself. You never know exactly when you’re going to be ready, but I’m looking forward to getting back out there and competing, and hopefully playing well.
“I’ve obviously got lots of great memories from here, from winning the tournament and playing here the first time when I was 18. I’m sure I’ll have the same nerves and stuff as I did all those years ago.”
He will play Australian world number 24 Nick Kyrgios in the first round on Tuesday.
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Murray’s long-awaited return
Following his surgery in Australia, Murray said he would only return to competition when completely fit and ready, although has long targeted a return for the grass-court season.
He had hoped to play in this week’s Libema Open in the Netherlands, but pulled out after saying he was “not quite ready and wanted to be 100%”.
Murray, a five-time Queen’s champion, practised on his own at the west London club before playing two sets against British number three Cameron Norrie on Friday.
“I’ve been practising the last couple of weeks and obviously building up each day,” he added.
“I started playing sets about a week ago. So, I played probably seven or eight sets, and I wanted to feel how I felt the following day after playing a couple of sets with Cam Norrie yesterday.
“I got tested by my physios on Saturday morning to make sure I hadn’t stiffened up and lost any range of motion in my hip which can happen when you’re tired and the hip’s a bit angry.
“That wasn’t the case. That was all positive and I pulled up pretty well from that, so then I decided to go for it.”
The Scot’s last competitive match was his Wimbledon quarter-final defeat by American Sam Querrey on 12 July, 2017.
He said he first felt pain in his right hip during the French Open semi-final against Wawrinka in June 2017, though he has had issues with it throughout his career.
Murray withdrew from the US Open two days before the start of the tournament in August, and said he realised he was not ready to compete in Brisbane prior to January’s Australian Open when he tested his hip against other top-50 players.
He had an operation at the St Vincent Hospital in Melbourne on 8 January.
This year’s Wimbledon begins on 2 July.
The challenge from Kyrgios
Murray has won all five of his previous meetings against Kyrgios, who was beaten by Roger Federer in the Mercedes Cup semi-final on Saturday.
“He’s always a tough guy to play against,” he added.
“He’s got a brilliant serve and obviously he’s very, very talented. He’s unpredictable as well.
“The positive is that there probably won’t be loads of long points. Points can be quite sharp with him, which is good, but obviously a very tricky match with the way that he plays and how comfortable he is on the grass.”
Elsewhere in the draw, British number one Kyle Edmund will play American Ryan Harrison, while Dan Evans, who be playing his first ATP Tour event since a year’s ban for taking cocaine, faces France’s Adrian Mannarino.
Spanish reigning champion Feliciano Lopez takes on Belgium’s David Goffin, while Croatian top seed Marin Cilic plays another Spaniard, Fernando Verdasco.
Bulgarian second seed Grigor Dimitrov will face Bosnia’s Damir Dzumhur while Serbia’s 12-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic – who finished as runner-up at Queen’s in 2008 – will play a qualifier.
World number four Juan Martin del Potro – who would have been top seed – pulled out of the tournament on Friday, saying he had been “advised to rest” by medics.
The 29-year-old Argentine, who has suffered a catalogue of injury problems in recent years, reached the French Open semi-finals last week.
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