Seven-time Grand Slam champion Mats Wilander has warned former World No. 1 Andy Murray against returning to the tour without getting a hundred percent fit.
Wilander, a former World No. 1, is of the opinion that two-time Wimbledon champion Murray must follow in the footsteps of Swiss great Roger Federer and Spanish superstar Rafael Nadal. Both Nadal and Federer took time off in 2016 to heal their respective injuries before making their stunning comebacks in 2017. While Federer went on to win the Australian Open and Wimbledon titles, Nadal took his Slam count to 16 after triumphing at Roland Garros and the US Open.
Murray, who hasn’t played an official ATP match since losing to Sam Querrey in the Wimbledon quarterfinals in July, pulled out of the Australian Open on Thursday. Murray cited the same old hip problem as the reason behind his withdrawal from the event in Melbourne. And according to Wilander, Murray should do whatever he could with surgery being one of the options to fix the long pending problem so that he could be fully fit to compete at the highest level in the sport.
“My advice would be to not return until you at least can walk the way you used to walk and not have a limp because that would make it much harder,” Wilander told Express Sport.
“A player would look at how you look on the court and that would give them a lot of confidence to play against him.”
“You could clearly tell when he played in Abu Dhabi and in his own exhibition back in Glasgow, if you have that much of a limp when you walk, you’re obviously very hindered when you run,” Wilander added.
“My advice would be to step away, get yourself healthy and take a page out to of Federer and Nadal’s book.
“He’s too good a player to worry about loss of confidence or loss of skill. It’s just a matter of getting physically healthy and I’m sure if the drive is there he will be back to where he would like to be.
“Rushing into it is most probably a bad idea. That would be my advice.
“But it’s obviously really difficult to say when you’re 30 years old and you’re dying to get back out on the court.”
