ANDY Murray insisted last night that he always believed he could make a return to competitive tennis after declaring himself fit to resume action for the first time in 11 months at this week’s Fever-Tree Championships at Queen’s Club. The Scot, laid low with a hip problem ever since limping out of Wimbledon at the quarter final stage last year, formally declared himself ready to return to the tour shortly before yesterday’s noon draw for a tournament where his five previous wins make him the most successful ever player. His first opponent, on Tuesday in the first round in Queen’s Club, will be his friend Nick Kyrgios.

“When you’re out for a year, it [whether he would ever return] is something you think about, but always in back of my mind I thought I would come back and play,” said Murray, who has dropped from World No 1 to No 157 in his year out. “I was in a pretty bad place at Wimbledon last year, I couldn’t really walk there at all and I still made the quarter finals, so my feeling was if I could get myself better, not necessarily perfect or where I was ten years ago, then I could get back to where I was competitive.”

Having emerged unscathed after eight practice sets in the last week, the Scot’s next challenge will be making sure he experiences no ill effects in the wake of the meeting with Kyrgios. He said he goes into the tournament, and Wimbledon in a fortnight’s time, with ‘zero expectations’.

“I was very concerned [during the rehab] and also even now when you’ve not played for such a long time, naturally you are going to have doubts,” he admitted. “You won’t know how you’re feeling until you start competing and playing matches again, whether it’s now, in two weeks or 5 weeks. Can I make a full recover?y I can only go off what I am told, from the doctors, and their view is that I absolutely can. I will see for myself before I give a definitive answer on that. I might not be playing my best tennis again, or feeling best on the court, it would be quite naïve to think that after 11 months out and a couple of surgeries.”