Andy Murray’s expectations on the north-American hardcourts have been lifted in recent weeks with the world No 50 beginning his campaign in Washington and Canada before the US Open. Can he pick up enough points to gain an all-important automatic seeding in New York?
The 35-year-old, who has already reached the final in Sydney and Stuttgart earlier in the year, has already played 14 tournaments this season and has not seen the injury woes of the previous few years other than an abdominal injury which scuppered his hopes of playing at Queen’s Club.
It’s not the first time he’s come back from adversity with the Scot winning his race to be fit for Wimbledon, but just like his early exit at the Australian Open in January, Murray suffered a disappointing exit at the hands of John Isner in the second round.
“The grass-court season as a whole there were some good moments, but also some tough ones. The loss at Wimbledon was disappointing and frustrating for me, but then I also had my best wins in a while in Stuttgart,” Murray told the official ATP website.
“So a bit up and down, but a little bit of progress overall and I’ll try and keep that going through the hard-court summer.”
His grass-court season came to a close with a quarter-final defeat to Alexander Bublik at the Hall of Fame Open.
“[I want] to continue to improve,” Murray said. “If I keep seeing progress I’ll continue to keep playing.”
So what’s next?
Murray is a three-time previous winner in Montreal
Murray will take on Mikael Ymer in the opening round of the ATP 500 Citi Open in Washington DC.
The former world No 1 will need to get past the Swede in order to secure a second-round date with 15th seed Aslan Karatsev.
He is set to play singles in the capital for the first time in four years, joining top American, Taylor Fritz, and five of the top six American males in the top 40 in the field.
Murray had initially entered ATP 250 Atlanta (July 25-31) but decided against playing the tournament as his plan was always to play two events from Newport, Atlanta and Washington.
The three-time Grand Slam champion will then head to Canada for the prestigious National Bank Open Masters 1000 in Montreal (August 7-14).
He is a three-time winner of the tournament, claiming victory in 2009, 2010 and 2015.
Murray remains undecided as to whether he will enter the second Masters 1000 event straight after Montreal. The Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati runs from (August 14-21) and he has fond memories of playing at the event, where he won the title in 2008 and 2011.
He could also pick up extra points at the ATP 250 Winston-Salem Open (August 21-27) if he’s pushing for a top-32 place and automatic entry into the US Open draw.
The final Grand Slam of 2022 runs from August 29 until September 11 at Flushing Meadows in New York.
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