Andy Murray is bracing himself for a tricky opener in Dubai today where he takes on Arab No1 Malek Jaziri for the first time.
The world No1 made his first competitive appearance since his Australian Open fourth round exit last month yesterday in doubles, losing 6-1, 7-6 (2) alongside Nenad Zimonjic to Dan Evans and Gilles Muller.
He makes his singles return tonight against Tunisia’s Jaziri, who is the highest-ranked Arab No51 in the world.
“I know Malek fairly well,” Murray told reporters in Dubai.
“I’ve never played with him and I’ve never practiced with him. But I’ve seen him play, he’s very talented. He plays with a lot of slice backhands, quite aggressive on the forehand. He’s played this event on a number of years, I think he quite likes the conditions here.”
Jaziri gets strong support in the UAE from the Arab contingency residing here and previously reached the quarter-finals in Dubai in 2014. The 33-year-old has started the year well, making the third round at the Australian Open, where he lost to Murray’s conqueror, Mischa Zverev.
“I think it’s a good match for me. Every year I play the No1 here in Dubai, I played Federer, I played Novak and now Murray… so it’s a good opportunity. I’m playing my best game ranking right now, I’m No47 in the world (down to 51 yesterday). I’ll prepare with my coach and we’ll see how it goes,” Jaziri told Sport360.
One player who is not focused on his ranking too much is Murray. The top seed is entering a stretch of tournaments where he is only defending 90 points until Monte Carlo in April and can widen the gap between himself and second-ranked Novak Djokovic but Murray insists keeping the No1 spot is not his top priority.
Murray was sick for about 10 days. Had shingles. Back to full strength now #DDFtennis pic.twitter.com/oEyO6qlqTL
— Reem Abulleil (@ReemAbulleil) February 26, 2017
“I don’t need to stay at No1,” said the 29-year-old Brit.
“Nothing bad happens if I fall to No2. My life is okay, no one dies, it’s all good. But I want to try and stay there, I’m motivated to try and do that. The way that the end of last season worked, I played so much tennis – I don’t think that’s necessarily a positive thing.
“If I could go back to last year, ideally I would have played better in the beginning part of the year in Indian Wells and Miami, that could have helped me later in the season. I want to try and play again good tennis at all of the events and not sort of have any drop-offs, which I did last year.
“That was between the Aussie Open and Monte Carlo, I won two matches on the tour in a good two and a half month period and I want to avoid that this year.”
