P. McEnroe: 'Murray will not return to the level of Roger Federer, Nadal, Djokovic'

A hip injury has seriously affected Andy Murray's career since 2017. The three-time Grand Slam champion operated on early last year and managed to get competitive again in the second half of 2019.

At the end of November 2019, a television documentary, Andy Murray: Resurfacing, was released on the Amazon Prime platform, detailing Murray's various attempts to overcome his hip injury over a two-year period from his defeat at Wimbledon in 2017 to his doubles victory at Queen's Club in 2019. In late December, Murray's team confirmed that the pelvic injury which had curtailed his involvement in the Davis Cup would also prevent him from entering the upcoming 2020 Australian Open and the inaugural ATP Cup.

The Grand Slam doubles winner Patrick McEnroe fancies the chances of him and a seven-time grand slam singles champion brother John taking down Andy and Jamie Murray, but only after a fraught contest. "Either way, it's going the distance, whether we play with the old wood racquets or not," the 53-year-old said to BBC.

"Both Murray brothers have amazing hands, so they could play with anything. My brother certainly could and he was arguably the greatest individual doubles player of all time. You'd have the calm guys - me and Jamie. I'm guessing John and Andy would probably go at it a little bit. There would some serious language and some serious intensity going on. It would also be a lot of fun and very competitive but I'm going to give the edge to the McEnroes - obviously - mostly because of my brother" - he added.

Patrick also reflected on Andy's future: "I would say he could get close but I think it's going to be difficult for him to get back to the level he was at, in other words, right there with [Roger] Federer, [Rafael] Nadal and [Novak] Djokovic," he said. "I do think he could probably get back to the top 20 or top 15. When he came back and won that tournament indoors [the European Open in Antwerp in 2019] that was a great sign. So if he could get back and be in the mix, that would be awesome and we would love to see that in the tennis world."

from Tennis World USA https://ift.tt/2YUkpwF