World number four Andy Murray says that he’s not expecting to win the Australian Open as it would be tough to maintain a level of competitiveness in five sets considering that he’s just starting his comeback from back surgery.
The British star returned to tennis action after more than three months of inactivity at the Mubadala World Tennis Championship where he lost his opening match but won his second to end the exhibition event in fifth place. He headed to the recently concluded Qatar Open where he lost in the second round to Florian Mayer of Germany.
“It’s tough to gauge. The way I was playing for half the match against Mayer I would be very happy with, but being able to maintain that for five sets is tricky,” Murray said in an interview with the Independent.
“Having a day off between matches would help me and also I’m going to get fitter by playing matches, so there’s a possibility that if I can get through a couple of rounds I’ll start to feel better as the tournament goes on. My body will start to feel better,” he added.
After a quarterfinal exit at the US Open in September, Murray opted to skip the rest of the season to undergo an operation to correct a back problem that has been affecting him for the most part of the 2013 season.
“But in terms of expectations I have no idea, to be honest. I wouldn’t like to say whether I’d be happy reaching the second week, or winning it, or whatever. I’ll have to see how the next 10 days or so go. You can get a lot done in that time.
“I wouldn’t expect to win the Australian Open. I’m just saying that I know that I’ve trained hard and physically I’ve done a lot of good work. But here was a perfect example of how you can be the fittest guy in the world but if you don’t play matches it’s completely different to anything we do in the gym or anything like that. It would be unrealistic to expect to win the Australian Open, but I may start to feel better if I can get through a match or two.”
