ANDY MURRAY ARTICLES 2006-2008 | In 2006 Andy Murray began his voyage into World top 20 Tennis players. Starting with a tame Australian Open campaign which led to a strained relationship with the bullish British press. His first ATP tour title in San Jose beating two Former Grand Slam Champions along the way. While a rather upsetting coaching split and a trouncing of the World number 1 filled a year where progress was there for the tennis public to see but attitude and off court issues usually filled the journalists copy. 2006 Scrappy Murray prevails after sluggish start By Neil Harman, Tennis Correspondent Published at 12:00AM, January 4 2006 HIS first match of 2006 reassured Andy Murray’s followers yesterday that the element of his game that stands him in such stead as a professional of rare promise — his love of a scrap — is undimmed. From every standpoint, Murray’s defeat of Paolo Lorenzi, an Italian qualifier, in the first round of the Next Generation Adelaide International, was exactly the kind of thrash in the dark of which these first-week events are chock-full. He served seven aces, six double faults, broke serve seven times in 12 attempts, lost his own service three times and won the final five games. The one statistic to matter was a 3-6, 6-0, 6-2 victory and a place in the second round today against Tomas Berdych, a player being touted every bit as fiercely in his native Czech Republic as Murray is in Britain. Berdych’s last defeat was against Murray in the second round of the Davidoff Swiss Indoors in Basle in October, after which the Scot was almost buried in headlines about the passing of the British baton — he defeated Tim Henman in the first round — while Berdych went on to overhaul a star-studded field and lift the Paris Masters. “He [Berdych] obviously has a lot of confidence,” Murray said. “If he plays well, he’s very difficult to beat. He’s beaten [Roger] Federer and [Rafael] Nadal and a lot of other top-ten players. “I have to get used to playing matches again. It’s been over two months, and that was indoors, so it takes a while to get used to the conditions. I know I’ve set myself a goal of getting into the top 20 by the end of the year and, to do that, I’m going to have to play better than I did today.” Resolute Murray out but not down By A Correspondent Published at 12:00AM, January 6 2006 THE spirit was willing yesterday, but Andy Murray found Tomas Berdych, of the Czech Republic, a touch too strong, a 7-6, 4-6, 6-1 victory sending the Scot out of the Next Generation Championship in Adelaide. For the 18-year-old, the next stop is Auckland, then on to the Australian Open. “I played twice as well as I did in the first match and to go three sets with Berdych in the second match of the year means I’m looking forward to the Australian Open and playing my best tennis there,” Murray said. “This year it’s going to be difficult because a lot of guys want to beat me.” Henman happy to play second fiddle By Neil Harman Published at 12:00AM, January 9 2006 As the Australian Open approaches, the local media is taking Andy Murray to their hearts A TWO-PAGE centre spread for one, a feel of Australia’s centre court for the other — a week away from the first grand-slam tournament of the year and there are rare tributes for British tennis players who are normally treated here as figures to be either ridiculed or pitied. Andy “He’s Scot The Lot” Murray, is, according to the Melbourne Age“young, talented, honest and outspoken, without an air or a grace”. Tim Henman could say that he is all those as well, though it took him a long time to be confident enough to be as outspoken as comes naturally to the Scot. And there has always been a grace about him even when seized at the most disappointing moments of his career. Yesterday, beneath a blazing sun — it is supposed to reach 36C (97F) this afternoon — Henman worked out at a near-deserted Rod Laver Arena, ironing the kinks from a body that, while it remains sleekness personified, shelters the aches and pains that drive him, at 31, to consider planning this year without a defined long-term vision. This will become for Henman a campaign of short, sharp, hopefully effective bursts. Much like his practice session, which took place under the watchful gaze of Jean-Pierre Bruyere, the fitness coach who has become one of the most important characters in the careers of both men. Bruyere is here to make certain that the physical programmes Murray and Henman were given after their recent visits to the French medical institute in Dijon, are adhered to in the prescribed manner. Henman reported: “Everything is good, no complaints,” after his brief serving hit. Murray, in Auckland for the Heineken Open, the second of his build-up tournaments to the Australian Open, has been made aware of the regime he must follow to make the maximum use of his physical attributes. If Henman has been the mainstay of British efforts at this and every other grand-slam championship, for the best part of a decade, the coverage of Murray yesterday indicates a shifting of accent and emphasis that is remarkable to behold. “I’m more than happy not to share the spotlight; he can have it all,” Henman said. “I thought when I lost to him in Basle in October, I made one of my better all-time comments to the media, about the torch being passed and that he was more than welcome to it. I know that judgments are being made already on both Andy and on myself. I was never able to stop them and neither will he be. To be frank, some of them are just embarrassing.” The great pity for Britain is that we shall never see a Davis Cup team with the two players together. It was this week last year that Henman rocked everyone by retiring from the competition to which he will return one day as Great Britain’s captain, when the time is right. Murray will be its talisman for the next decade, starting in Glasgow in April with a tie against either Serbia and Montenegro or Israel. “Yes, it would have been fantastic to have an opportunity to play in a team with Andy and Greg [Rusedski] but in that idyllic world, you would just rock up on Friday ready to play,” he said. “Then there is the reality of it, and the preparation and workload that goes with Davis Cup. When, at the end of a very successful 2004 I looked at everything, what I had achieved on the tour and what that took out of me, something had to give. I didn’t know it at the time but I was physically and mentally exhausted.” Henman talks about having enjoyment and motivation back at the start of his twelfth full season as a professional player. “I appreciate I may not always feel my best this year, but it will definitely be a lot better for me than 2005,” he said. If that happens to Murray, then we really will have a phenomenon on our hands. As far as the Australians are concerned, that is already the case. Not even in 2002, the year when, as the men’s singles entered its fourth round and he was the top seed left in the draw (he promptly lost in straight sets to Jonas Bjorkman, of Sweden) was Henman given quite the treatment being meted out to the 18-year-old. “He is Wayne Rooney with a brain,” they say. “Could the British, fresh from finally unearthing the ‘next Ian Botham’ in Freddie Flintoff, be so lucky as to have discovered in the same year a potential legitimate contender for a Wimbledon crown? OK, any grand-slam would do but Wimbledon would be nice.” In the light of the succession of top-line withdrawals from the Australian Open — Andre Agassi is a confirmed absentee, Rafael Nadal and Marat Safin, the defending champion, will not play and Mariano Puerta, of Argentina, was in the original acceptance list until his eight- year ban for a doping offence — Henman, ranked No 36, may yet find that he is among the 32 seeds. For Murray, such a benefit can only be a couple of grand-slam tournaments away. Murray progresses despite ‘playing like a woman’ By Times Online and Agencies Published at 12:00AM, January 9 2006 Andy Murray is through to the second round of the Heineken Open in Auckland, but not without offending the crowd with his post-match comments. Britain’s No 3 was a comfortable 7-5, 6-2 winner over Denmark’s Kenneth Carlsen, but drew a chorus of heckling for claiming “we both played like women in the first set”. When quizzed further about what he had said, Murray stressed he was referring to comments made by Russian Hopman Cup player Svetlana Kuznetsova. “I was watching a Hopman Cup match on TV from here and Kuznetsova said it after there were nine breaks in the first set, so that’s why I said it,” said Murray. Murray will next play Mario Ancic, the big-serving Croatian who defeated Tim Henman in straight sets at Wimbledon in 2004.