Murray sets sights on winning a first Australian Open

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  • Murray and Nadal at the MWTC launch (Photo by Francois Nel/Getty Images)

    For some players, the Australian Open comes way too soon, just two weeks into the new season, but for Andy Murray, the fast-approaching grand slam in Melbourne is precisely what he needs.

    Having scaled his own Everest to reach the top of the world rankings at the end of last season, thanks to a career-best six-month stretch and a 26-match winning streak to cap off 2016, Murray is keen to keep the momentum going and admits he has his sights firmly set on next month’s major Down Under.

    After ticking several boxes on his tennis bucket list, one can understand if Murray requires some time to reassess his goals and find new motivation for the upcoming period but the Scot insists it was business as usual during the offseason, where worked hard in Miami to prepare for 2017.

    “I think it does help in these situations that the Aussie Open comes so close at the beginning of the year and that’s a tournament that I’ve played some of my best tennis at and come close a number of times and never quite managed to win, so it’s actually quite easy like in the short-term to build and look towards that event,” a relaxed-looking Murray told reporters in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday ahead of his participation in the Mubadala World Tennis Championship (MWTC) this weekend.

    “I think after the Aussie Open’s finished, it’s four or five months until the next slam. That’s an important period for me where you need to sit down and really focus on what’s next. But it’s not been too hard the last few months because the Aussie Open is a tournament I’d love to win.”

    Murray has reached the Australian Open final five times in the last seven years but has never walked away with the winner’s trophy.

    The world No1 has three grand slam titles on his resume – US Open 2012, Wimbledon 2013 and 2016 – but Rod Laver Arena continues to deny him.

    “I’ve played really well there in the past and it hasn’t happened for me so I’ll need to do something a little bit different this year,” said the 29-year-old.

    “But I love the conditions there, I enjoy the tournament a lot and I’ll be going in hopefully playing well with a lot of confidence because of the way I finished 2016. I’ll give it a good go this year but there’s no guarantees that it’ll happen for me.”

    Murray took the top ranking from Novak Djokovic after clinching the Paris Masters title in Bercy last month and secured the year-end No1 ranking by winning the season-closing ATP World Tour Finals in London.

    He is yet to determine how he will deal with his new position as the hunted man on tour but believes setting himself short-term targets will aid his cause.

    “I tend to set more short-term goals and that’s worked better for me in the past. Sometimes when I’ve looked like five, six months ahead, that hasn’t been good for me, so I tend to look just one or two months ahead and that’s why I said the Australian Open was not that difficult for me to set goals for the beginning of the year but I think once the Australian Open is done it’s four, five months until the next slam that’s where I need to make sure I stay focused,” he explains.

    “That’s a period of the year where I have struggled at times in the past, post-Australian Open, sometimes in Indian Wells and Miami I haven’t played so well and through February and I’m going to try and do a better job at that next year.”

    After reaching the French Open final for the first time last June, Murray went on a rampage, capturing a second Wimbledon crown and a second singles Olympic gold medal, before winning Beijing, Shanghai, Vienna, Paris and London. He says gold in Rio was the achievement he was most proud of but “the hardest thing was getting to No1,” he added.

    “Because the Olympics is an eight-day event, whereas getting to No1 took me basically the whole year, right down to the last tournament and the last match of the year to finish as No1.

    “That was really hard, it took a lot out of me physically and mentally, at the end of the year I was really really tired, more tired than I’ve been at the end of any season that I’d finished before, so it took a lot out of me.”

    The Brit took a couple of weeks off to rest before putting in the hard yards in Miami, where he worked on improving several aspects of his game.

    “Hopefully my game is better at the start of this year than it was at the end of 2016,” he says.

    Does he feel different being the No1 player in the world?

    “I don’t feel too much different. It’s a great thing to achieve, I’m happy I managed to get to No1, it’s something I’d never done so to do it at 29 is pretty cool. There’s not loads of things now at this stage in my career that I’ve never done before so anytime you achieve something new is great, especially this late in my career,” he replies.

    And is there more demand of his time?

    “Maybe I feel slightly like I have more responsibility maybe a little bit but in terms of demand on my time I don’t feel too much different,” said Murray, who will commence his MWTC campaign on Friday against either Jo-Wilfried Tsonga or David Goffin (17:00 Abu Dhabi time).

    Did the prospect of having an early season clash against Djokovic factor into Murray’s decision to return to Doha for the first time since 2013?

    “Normally you make the decision quite a long time in advance. You can get an idea who’s going to be playing where but… I mean, to be honest this year I just fancied doing something different,” Murray explains.

    “It hasn’t worked for me at the Aussie Open the last few years, probably nothing to do with my preparation but… you know, it splits the journey up a little bit as well. There was a chance that maybe my family was going to come here as well, so to split that trip up instead of doing one long trip over to Australia might have helped.

    “I’ve enjoyed playing in Abu Dhabi and Doha in the past, I’ve had some good success in Doha so hopefully it’ll work well for me.

    “Seems to have worked well for Novak as well so hopefully it works for me too,” he added with a laugh.

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