Andy Murray is relishing a return to the practice court in Miami as he continues to search for his top form after his struggles at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells.
Murray suffered an uncomfortable week in the Californian desert which culminated with a deeply disappointing fourth-round defeat by Milos Raonic on Wednesday in which his game collapsed in the deciding set.
The Scot now has a week before he begins the defence of his Sony Open title, time which he plans to put to good use with coach Ivan Lendl as he looks to rediscover his confidence after losing four times this year to players ranked outside the top ten.
"The best way to get over results like this or to get better is to get on the practice court, get in the gym and put work in and that often gives you confidence," said Murray.
"I've played a lot of matches in the last few weeks and months but I haven't spent so much time in the gym or loads of time practising different things. I've just been getting my match fitness back up and now that I'm match fit, maybe I need to get back on the practice court and work on a number of things. It's certainly not just one aspect of my game that I'm not happy with, there's a few things that I'd like to do better."
Murray admits he is concerned by his recent failure to close out matches from winning positions, with three defeats this year coming after he won the first set.
However, the 26-year-old takes salvage from the fact that, for now, he is purely looking at solving a tennis issue, with his body in good shape ahead of the punishing clay season which is due to begin for him in three weeks' time in Naples for the Davis Cup quarter-final between Italy and Great Britain.
"I'll need to make sure that I stay on top of things so I don't have any recurrence of the issue but I'm glad I'm match fit and that I haven't come back and my body has broken down," said Murray. "I think most people who have back issues, they don't tend to just go away, you have to monitor things over the whole course of your career and that's something I'll need to do over the next four or five years. Hopefully by the French Open, I'll be ready to play my best tennis again."
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