Last Updated on October 31, 2021
Having withdrawn from the Australian Open due to his positivity to the Coronavirus, the British champion Andy Murray returned to Italy and took part in the Challenger tournament in Biella, where he beat Maximilian Marterer, Gian Marco Moroni, Blaz Rola and Mathias Borgue before losing in the final to Illja Marchenko in two sets.
In Montpellier, on the other hand, Andy went out immediately at the hands of Belarusian Egor Gerasimov with a score of 7-6 6-1. The former world number one back on the court in Rotterdam, ATP 500 event, where he defeated the host Robin Haase.
Muzza mentality 💪@andy_murray gets his first win of 2021, defeating Haase from 3-0 down in the decider in the @abnamrowtt first round! pic.twitter.com/thkKQZplMd
— Tennis TV (@TennisTV) March 1, 2021
Murray: “Excited to be back on the tour”
In an interview before the match published by Tennis365.com, Andy said:
I’m excited to be back competing. Physically I feel good, which is the most important thing. It goes without saying that the second most important factor for me is playing matches and getting back to winning on Tour. I want to try to play matches, but I just have to focus on the first one and then try to move forward.
I’ve played Robin a couple of times in the past, we know each other pretty well. We’ve had great matches in big tournaments and he’s a talented guy with a great game. My focus is on that and trying to take each day as it comes.
When you haven’t played in a long time and then you get into one of these matches it’s not like four, five years ago when you were facing five or six matches a week and you were used to it. I haven’t played much and I need to find the confidence and some wins.
Andy Murray
Murray also spoke on his forfeit in Australia, which prevented him from competing in the first Grand Slam of the season:
I had been training hard for ten weeks and feeling really good, when all of a sudden I found myself unable to do anything.
I wasn’t allowed to leave the house … all this obviously has repercussions on the physical level, but also on the mental level. In the last few years I missed a lot of important dates because of injuries and other things, I was really very disappointed.”
Andy Murray
Murray and Haase have met six times on Tour: the Dutchman’s only victory came in 2008, in Rotterdam, with Robin winning 7-5 6-3.
