Andy Murray looking to put injury woes behind

LONDON: Andy Murray is planning to make his latest comeback in just over a week’s time as he looks to put more injury problems behind him.

The Scot has been on the sidelines since developing groin pain during his sleep ahead of the Miami Open in March in yet another blow to his efforts to return to the top of the game.

Scans were inconclusive but Murray has been able to train in London for most of the last few weeks and was to travel to Rome on Saturday for a week of practice with the top names in the sport. He is then hoping to receive a wild card for either of the ATP tournaments in Geneva or Lyon the following week before playing the French Open.

Murray said of his injury: “When I got back from Miami I went through a process of scans. They didn’t show anything serious but I was still having pain. I had to do quite a lot of work in the gym to address some imbalances and lack of range of motion. I’ve been working on that for a few weeks but the positive thing was that I was able to practice pretty much since I got back.

“The last five or six days there has been a definite improvement. I’ve played points the last four days and there hasn’t been residual pain when waking up.”

Murray has been very short of match play over the past 18 months because of a series of niggling injury problems and an ill-timed bout of coronavirus on top of the break in the tour last year.

He has won only one tour-level match since last September but hopes that being among the leading players next week at the Italian Open, even though he will not be in the tournament, will prove beneficial.

“On Sunday I’ve got a court booked with (Diego) Schwartzman and then Novak (Djokovic) in the afternoon, and then (I’m) trying to sort some more after that,” he said. “I want to play against the highest level players possible because I think that will help me improve my game quicker. When you are practicing against the best guys it shows up better the things that you need to improve on.”