THINGS don’t get any easier for Andy Murray. On the day he took just two games off Novak Djokovic in a practice match on Margaret Court arena, the three-time Grand Slam winner and former World No 1 had the misfortune to be handed a strenuous first-round Australian Open assignment against Spain’s Roberto Bautista-Agut.
While the 31-year-old Scot has won all three of his previous meetings against a man who previously graced the youth ranks of Villarreal and would usually fancy his chances, Bautista-Agut is coming off one of the biggest weeks of his career, having taken care of none other than Djokovic as he claimed the Qatar Exxon Mobile Open in Doha last week. By contrast, most observers who were granted privileged access to this all-star exhibition match spoke of their concern about the Scot’s laboured movement after this practice hit, which stood at 6-1, 4-1 in Djokovic’s favour when time was called.
Murray has played just two tour matches since shutting down his 2018 season early to concentrate on further intensive rehab work on that troublesome hip of his at a specialist centre in Philadelphia, a first round win against Jack Duckworth in Brisbane before he came a cropper against World No 16 Daniil Medvedev. That tell-tale limp was back in evidence between points yesterday in what was a re-match of four previous Aussie Open finals. But having spoken in emotional terms about the difficulties of playing through the pain barrier, at least his sense of humour seemed to be intact.
The Scot apologised to a supporter on Instagram afterwards, saying ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t be more entertaining today’, then pledged to give her a ticket for his first-round encounter. When Djokovic conceded the point when one of only two winners off the ground during the whole season was called just long by the umpire, Murray earned a few laughs from the crowd by saying ‘you wouldn’t have done that if it is was a final’.
Should Murray – in the same half of the draw as Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal - overcome Bautista-Agut, the likes of home favourite John Millman and the highly-rated Karen Khachanov of Russia lie in wait. Cam Norrie is pitted against his doubles partner Taylor Fritz, a man who he beat in Auckland this week, while Kyle Edmund – a 2018 semi-finalist here - has a tough opener against Doha runner-up Tomas Berdych. Djokovic could have a re-run of a previous final against Jo-Wilfried Tsonga as early as the second round.In the women’s event, Jo Konta – also a former semi-finalist at this venue -faces adopted Aussie Alja Tomljanovic, while No 16 seed Serena Williams starts against her fellow mum, Tatjana Maria of Germany.
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