US Open: Amid testing times, Andy Murray has learned to listen to his body

Since returning from hip surgery, the former world No 1 has had to curb his natural instincts in training as he attempts to manage his comeback

For a man who relishes hard work and has grown accustomed to success at the very highest level, these are testing times for Andy Murray. In the past the former world No 1’s reaction to any adversity would be to go away and work harder than ever on the practice court, but since returning from hip surgery he has had to curb his natural instincts.

As Murray prepared for his US Open second-round meeting with Fernando Verdasco here at the US Open, he was focusing on managing his continuing rehabilitation rather than sweating it out for too long on the practice court.

“Sometimes on the off-days at Slams I would hit for maybe an hour and a half,” Murray said. “It’s something that I certainly won’t be doing in future. I will be keeping my practice on the off-days much lighter and conserving as much energy as I can for the matches.

“I think you can obviously make improvements to what you’ve got going into the tournament, but I feel like that happens from the matches that you play and from growing confidence from winning matches and getting used to the conditions rather than it being something you make a drastic change to during the event on the practice court.

“Obviously if there is something in the match that is really not working well, you know you can spend a few more minutes on that. But I’m not going to be having intense, long practices during a Grand Slam ever again.”

In last week’s build-up to his Grand Slam return after a 14-month break, Murray spent most of his time on rehab work rather than on the practice court.

“When I was rehabbing after Cincinnati, I did it for two and a half hours in the morning, and then had an hour and a half in the pool in the afternoon,” he said. “On top of that, treatment can be anywhere from two to three hours.”

Although Murray thought he could have moved better in his first-round victory here over James Duckworth on Monday, he said that playing on hard courts was easier on his hip than he had felt when he made his comeback on grass.

“It’s a lot easier to move on hard courts,” he said. “Grass is slippery, for sure. You have to be a lot more careful with your movement, whereas you can trust the surface a lot more here.

“You can really ram your foot down and know that your foot is not going to go from underneath you. The hard courts definitely helped with that, with the change of direction stuff, but my movement still needs to get better.”

Murray takes on Fernando Verdasco in the second round (Getty) (Getty Images)

Murray began his hard-court campaign this summer in Washington, where he played three long matches. “In the matches I played in Washington, the discomfort I have been feeling in my hip was a lot better than it was over the grass-court season,” he said. “I've got a bunch of matches under my belt, a lot more training and just a better understanding of where my body is at.”

Murray said that Verdasco would provide a very different challenge to Duckworth following his hard-fought victory over the Australian.

“They are quite different players,” Murray said. “Verdasco doesn't use as much variety. Duckworth is coming into the net quite a lot and hits, especially his backhand, pretty flat and uses quite a lot of slice.

“Obviously, Fernando has an extremely heavy forehand, plays with a lot of spin. On the serve, it’s sometimes difficult to know what he's going to do. I have played him sometimes where he’s been going for huge serves. And then I also played in one where he served 80 per cent on his first serve and rolled the serve in.

Andy Murray in action against James Duckworth during the first round (Getty Images)

“Duckworth tends to serve quite a low percentage and go for his serve, so they’re pretty different players. Fernando is a great shot-maker and someone that when he’s on his game, is really tough to beat. When he’s dictating, you can’t allow him to dictate too much.”

Verdasco, who has lost 13 of his previous 14 meetings with Murray, said he would not be thinking about the fact that the Scot is in the early stages of his comeback.

“I’m just thinking about the match, how to prepare and how to play,” he said. “I don’t think it’s going to change just because he was injured. For me it’s going to be one more match where I will go out to the court and try my best.”

Would the Spaniard focus on trying to keep Murray moving around the court? “I try to do that every day – not because he was injured or not injured,” Verdasco said. “I think he will try to move me and I will try to move him.”

While Murray is pleased to have won his first match on his return, he is still not thinking of himself as a contender for the title here. “I don’t think anything changes,” he said. “I’m still just taking it one match at a time.”