THE lawns are being manicured, the Pimm’s is being put on ice. It won’t be long now until the action switches to the grass courts of Queen’s Club and Wimbledon and the temptation for a competitive animal like Andy Murray to return to the match court must be almost unbearable. Tim Henman, however, feels it is vital that his friend resists the urge until he is sure that his body is as near to 100% as possible. A further setback at this stage, six months after his hip surgery in Melbourne, and the best part of a year since his last competitive outing, the SW19 quarter final against Sam Querrey, really doesn’t bear thinking about.
“Unfortunately Andy’s season has been non-existent because he’s been injured,” said Henman, speaking ahead of the launch of new website and app deucetennis.com, an initiative also backed by Murray himself. “He’s had an incredibly tough time – to think that he hasn’t played since Wimbledon last year, did a lot of rehabilitation to avoid surgery but that didn’t have the impact or the outcome that he wanted.
“Then he’s had the surgery and we’ve got to keep our fingers crossed that he’s moving in the right direction and he can be back on the match-court sometime soon. His mentality goes without saying but unfortunately this is an area where it doesn’t matter what he thinks mentally, it’s all about his body. He’s got to make sure his body and his hip is 100 per cent, or as close as he can get to that, before he can really worry about competing. We know that the standard at the top level is so high, unless you are in peak physical condition it’s going to be very difficult to compete with the best players in the world.”
The 31-year-old, who decided against competing in hastily-arranged Challenger Tour events in both Glasgow and Loughborough, is entered into the Rosmalen tournament in Den Bosch, which gets under way on June 11. In his absence from the French Open, which gets under way at Roland Garros this week, much spotlight will fall upon Kyle Edmund, the man who has usurped him at the top of the British rankings, although Cam Norrie, a converted kilted kiwi whose father David hails from Scotland, has now gatecrashed the world’s top 100 too.
**Deuce is an initiative backed by Andy Murray designed to make it simple, fun and affordable to play more tennis. Visit www.deucetennis.com to find and book free, friendly coach-led sessions suitable for everyone and available at a location near you.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here