Britain's Andy Murray insists he is well prepared for Indian Wells despite having not played any competitive tennis for more than a month.
The Scot, 25, had a first-round bye and will meet Russia's Evgeny Donskoy at approximately 2100 GMT on Sunday.
Third in the world rankings, Murray had a 10-day break after his loss to Novak Djokovic in the Australian Open final.
"After Australia I came to Miami to train for three weeks, so physically I'm in good shape," said Murray.
"I'm just lacking in match practice and I just hope I can get a few wins here to get my rhythm back."
The US Open champion hopes to improve on a poor recent record at the California event, having lost in the first round in the last two years, and is aiming to build momentum there and at the Sony Open which follows.
"I haven't played particularly well here the last couple of years," he told BBC Radio 5 live.
"I've struggled so I wanted to make sure I prepared as best I could for these two events in Indian Wells and Miami."
Having not played competitively since losing to Djokovic in Melbourne on 27 January, Murray accepts he may lack match sharpness but is confident his fitness is at the right level.
"I practised a lot and played a lot of practice sets. Obviously that helps but nothing is the same as playing the matches in front of the cameras and big crowds. It's tough to replicate that but you just have to trust the training that you've done and hope that it has been good enough.
Jimmy Connors has praised Ivan Lendl for his coaching work with Andy Murray
"I trained for about four weeks in December, played a couple of tournaments, and then I've trained for another three weeks so I should be in good shape."
Eight-time Grand Slam winner Jimmy Connors thinks that Murray can add further major titles thanks to his work with coach Ivan Lendl.
Connors beat Lendl in the US Open finals of 1982 and 1983, but speaking to Radio 5 live he credited his former adversary for guiding Murray to his first Grand Slam win last September.
"I didn't think he'd ever win one. Lendl was one of the strongest guys, mentally, I ever played against and I think he has brought that one thing to the table that Andy has really grabbed onto.
"The confidence he should have now after winning the US Open should be tremendous. One should not be enough, he should be looking for five, or six, or seven, he should jump into the group with the rest of the guys he's playing against."
No comments:
Post a Comment