ANDY Murray has revealed that his shock Australian Open defeat last month was partly down to him suffering from shingles.
The world number one, from Dunblane, was speaking in Dubai ahead of his latest tournament when he divulged he had contracted the skin ailment, which is caused by the dormant chickenpox virus being reactivated.
Murray said he is now back to his best ahead of the Dubai Tennis Championships. He said: “I was a bit sick for 10 days, a couple of weeks, after I got back from Australia.
“I feel fresh and ready to go here. I had shingles. It’s not terrible, but it’s not great. I had to go easy for a little while, so I wasn’t able to push that hard in training when I got back into it. But I’m fine now and have been training flat out the last two weeks.”
Murray lost to German Mischa Zverev in a four-set, fourth-round encounter at the first major of the year.
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