BRAD Gilbert, Andy Murray's former coach, believes that it is too early to worry about the uncharacteristic early-round defeats which the World No 1 has suffered in Melbourne and Indian Wells. The World No 1 already has one title to his name this year, racked up in Dubai last month, but he goes into his home ATP tournament in Miami this week in the midst of what, by his own fearsome standards, has to go down as an inconsistent stretch of form.

After a shock last 16 defeat to Germany's Mischa Zverev at the Australian Open, came a second round defeat in the US desert to an admittedly-inspired Vasek Pospisil of Canada. While surprising, Gilbert feels the world should wait until the clay court season before they draw any grand conclusions. To be fair, he isn't the only one of the sport's leading men displaying indifferent form, with Novak Djokovic having lost twice to Nick Kyrgios and once to Denis Istomin on tour already this year, and the Scot did experience a similar wobble prior to his glory run last year.

"You know, everybody asks those questions any time that all of a sudden you come down a little bit, and I can't answer the question for him," said Gilbert, a pundit for US broadcasters ESPN. "The results answer the question. I think that he had an amazing run, and I'm not going to say that he overplayed or underplayed. But he's lost a couple of matches that -- to Pospisil [at Indian Wells] and to Zverev [at the Aussie Open] that you never expect him to lose. But also that reminds you the great thing about tennis and sports. That's why you lace up the sneakers. Every once in a while the underdog can come up with this incredible win, and it gives everybody hope.

"It's so early in the year, and I felt like last year he played his best tennis by far on the clay court season," Gilbert added. "I think that sets everything up for him, so I do think that the clay court season once again will be a really important time for him to really set the time frame. If all is said and if things don't go well during the clay court season, then maybe we'll reconvene, but I'm not ready to all of a sudden say that, okay, he's not going to win a major this year and he's going to really drop off. I need to see the clay season. I'm not worried, but they are a couple results that definitely have surprised you."

The travails of the world's top two continue to present opportunities for the evergreen Roger Federer, and a fit again Rafa Nadal. "The most amazing thing about Fed and Rafa is both of them are still unbelievably motivated after all the time they've played to continue to play at this level," said Gilbert. "They both are playing healthy so far in 2017, and I also think that maybe, maybe they're both starting to feel a little bit better about their games and where they're at because the guys from the '90s haven't broken through, and for the first time, Murray has had a little bit of indifferent results and the same with Djokovic. Maybe that's giving them more faith that all of a sudden there's still more of a window for them."