ANDY MURRAY will try to shake off a bit of Davis Cup stiffness from his body in time to make a run at the title in Indian Wells this week.
Murray begins his bid tomorrow against either Marcel Granollers of Spain or Damir Dzumhur of Bosnia and Herzegovina, having hot-footed it to the California desert after his latest Davis Cup exploits.
The world No.2 battled for almost five hours on Sunday to beat Kei Nishikori as Britain began their Davis Cup defence with a 3-1 win over Japan.
A long flight to the west coast saw him arrive in Indian Wells on Monday night, and since he has been trying to get acclimatised as quickly as possible.
“I feel good,” he said last night. “It was a long trip, obviously I had a long match in the Davis Cup on Sunday.
“I haven’t really hit many balls – I arrived Monday night, I hit for an hour and half since I arrived and am practising later today, but I feel good, I’ve been sleeping decent, which is important.
“I’ll try to get more practice in the next few days to get better used to the conditions, I haven’t hit a ball outdoors for five and a half or six weeks, and it’s a bit different.”
Conditions in the desert – the ball flies fast through the air but the courts are relatively slow – have not always been to Murray’s liking.
Though he reached the final in 2009, Murray has also suffered a few shocks here and so he will be taking nothing for granted when he begins his campaign tomorrow.
This is his first Tour event away from his new daughter, Sophie, though the pair will be reunited when his wife Kim brings the new baby to Miami later this month.
“Kim is not massively into travelling every week,” said Murray, who will play doubles today with fellow Scot, Colin Fleming. “Some partners like travelling but you find out what works for you.
“She’s coming to Miami. That’s the first trip my daughter will be making. We’ll see how it goes and [if it works], we might be a bit more pumped to travel.”
The women’s world No.1 Serena Williams is also back in Indian Wells, 12 months after she returned for the first time since 2001, an absence caused by the racist abuse subjected to her and her sister Venus Williams, who returns for the first time since.
“I’m excited for her hopefully to have the experience I had last year,” Serena said yesterday.
“This is where everything started for us, early in our careers. It means a lot to us and we had good memories. We had that one [other] memory and we both want to get rid of that.”
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