London: Andy Murray has not won a title since Wimbledon and it is hurting him nearly as much as his creaking back did in the two years in which he added Olympic gold and two slams to his resume.
What the world No.8 needs is a dividend on his gamble to let a surgeon fix the career-threatening injury six months ago. He could also do with settling on a coach to replace Ivan Lendl, who bailed out of their relationship in Miami last month after two glorious years. Bob Brett, who is on secondment to the Lawn Tennis Association to assess their progress under the new chief executive, Michael Downey, has emerged as a strong candidate.
Murray has enormous respect for the 60-year-old Australian, who has guided Boris Becker, Goran Ivanisevic, Andrei Medvedev, Mario Ancic and, most recently, Marin Cilic. He says he would like to decide before the French Open, which starts on May 25. Speculation that he might choose the Davis Cup captain, Leon Smith, would seem to be wide of the mark, as Smith is committed to building on the tremendous work he has done with the Great Britain team over the past four years.
They fell short in the quarter-finals in Naples on Sunday but losing 3-2 to Italy on a pock-marked mud-heap masquerading as serviceable clay was no disgrace. Murray, who beat Andreas Seppi on the first day, then took the doubles with Colin Fleming to put GB 2-1 in front on Friday, was a tick under his maximum against a fired-up Fabio Fognini on Sunday, going down in three tense sets.
When Murray responds to questions about his back, his slightly pained expression is more closely connected to the predictability of the inquiry than to any lingering discomfort in his repaired injury. Smith thinks he is almost there and the player, who is notoriously hard on himself, is slowly coming around to that point of view.
“I hope so,” he said. “I pulled up OK after the matches here. In San Diego [where Great Britain beat the United States on drop-in clay], it wasn’t so good. Here it was a bit better with regards to the back, so that’s a positive.
“I’m not playing until Madrid [on May 4, followed by Rome a week later]. So I have time to take a bit of a break. I don’t know exactly how long I will take off but I need to let my body recover. Although I maybe haven’t won as many matches as in previous years, that doesn’t mean that when you’re at the tournaments you’re not practising every day and preparing for those events.
“I’ve played a lot of tennis this year. With the Davis Cup as well, that’s an extra couple of weeks. I also played in Rotterdam [where he lost to Cilic, now coached by Ivanisevic]. That was another week. Acapulco [losing to Grigor Dimitrov in the semis] was straight through into Indian Wells and Miami. So it’s been quite a long start to the year for me.
“I am looking forward to the clay court season. I didn’t play the French last year. I only played a few matches on the clay last year because of the back problem. The court in San Diego was clay but it was not like the ones here.
“I haven’t played loads on the clay in the last couple of years. I need to play more. I think I can play well on the surface. There are just things, intricacies of playingon clay, that I need to learn. The best way to learn is by playing matches like we did here, against guys who are very good on the surface. Hopefully I’ll learn something and take that forward into the next few weeks.”
He will fit in an extended practice period this year, having decided against playing in Portugal, and he might well seek out his former clay-court coach Alex Corretja in Barcelona.
As Murray and his teammates boarded their flight to London on Monday, passengers greeted them with the sort of spontaneous applause that suggested their efforts were hugely appreciated.
They would very much like to be doing something similar for Murray on a tennis court this summer.
