Grand Slam - Roland Garros

VSandhi20 · Futures qualifying

RE: Grand Slam - Roland Garros

Count Zero · Tennis legend

sure, but he will be probably fined if he pulls out as he finished his singles match, although i am sure he could get a doctors note. maybe james persuaded him to play?

Drew · Jun 1, 2006

Really good article by Neil Harman of the times...who also was doing commentary on R5 live sports extra.........one of Murrays biggest fans...!

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,5205-2204407,00.html

biggsy · Improver

he's getting a pasting in the doubles. he shouldn't be playing if he's supposedly got a bad back. i was playing a league match last night and the discussion turned to Murray being generally unfit and all this talk of him "still growing" was nonsense in respect to him being soo skinny. When you look at his body it doesn't seem that he's done much gym work unlike Nadal, Monfils, Hewitt etc. There was also the rumour that when he went to train with Amir Khan (the boxer), Khan wasn't impressed with Murrays fitness at all.

aria81 · Club Coach

biggsy wrote:

he's getting a pasting in the doubles. he shouldn't be playing if he's supposedly got a bad back. i was playing a league match last night and the discussion turned to Murray being generally unfit and all this talk of him "still growing" was nonsense in respect to him being soo skinny. When you look at his body it doesn't seem that he's done much gym work unlike Nadal, Monfils, Hewitt etc. There was also the rumour that when he went to train with Amir Khan (the boxer), Khan wasn't impressed with Murrays fitness at all.

I'm afraid it's nonsense to say that his back problems aren't caused by still growing and as no one here is a doctor or his fitness trainer, I think it's grasping to speculate on rumours and half truths. I remember on the BBC MB last year there was someone on swearing they saw Murray skiving off in the gym at Queens and slagging him off for not working hard enough when, in fact, Murray was in France with the DC team at the time.

Some guys fill out more naturally than others, some others are still growing into their body in their early 20s which is why, if you look at some sports people, footballers, tennis players etc, some of them have problems with cramping and their hammys in their early twenties and then grow out of it. I'm thinking of James Blake, Stephen Gerrard, Ryan Giggs, Andy Roddick here who all had different conditions early in their career. You wouldn't necessarilly go up to any of them and say 'by the way, you're just lazy and unfit' would you?

If the guy hasn't finished growing yet, there's not a lot he can do about it at the moment. You will know yourself, when you are still growing you aren't allowed to press too hard at certain things which is why you see young sports people generally introduced gradually into their chosen field because the risk of burn out and serious injury on growing bodies is so great. If you finish growing early, like Nadal and Monfils then great (Monfils doesn't have great fitness either by the way), but if not you just have to wait it out. It doesn't make you a bust if you can't.

Drew · Jun 2, 2006

biggsy wrote:

he's getting a pasting in the doubles. he shouldn't be playing if he's supposedly got a bad back. i was playing a league match last night and the discussion turned to Murray being generally unfit and all this talk of him "still growing" was nonsense in respect to him being soo skinny. When you look at his body it doesn't seem that he's done much gym work unlike Nadal, Monfils, Hewitt etc. There was also the rumour that when he went to train with Amir Khan (the boxer), Khan wasn't impressed with Murrays fitness at all.

I think u have to look at the facts. It was identified last year through x-rays (German specialist) that Andy has a bone in his lower back that causes cramps and pain. I am no doc but i tend to go with specialist advice. He went 5 sets with Pavel & beat him despite taking on to much fluid & made him sick on court. If he was unfit he would havd lost !
He works very hard dont take my word for it.... Petch told me himself last november that if more of the British guys would work as hard as AM does then they would improve no end !

aria81 · Club Coach

Just to add to this about Andy's injury problems getting put down to laziness by some people. Chris Bailley has an article on the BBC site where he compares Andy to Maria Sharapova (not as ridiculous as it might seem actually

)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/tennis/5031598.stm

It is all very unfortunate but let's not start thinking this is a mental problem for Andy.

One of Andy's major strengths is his mental fortitude and I think he proved that against Monfils in the opening three sets.

However, it is clear that he has a lot of hard work to do and a lot of pain to go through to get to a level where he is strong enough to go the distance: not just for one match but for seven.

Until he puts in that hard graft, his body will always let him down.

But the problem Murray faces is very similar to the one faced by Maria Sharapova on the women's tour: to increase your fitness, you need to increase your workload, but if you increase your workload while you're still growing, you risk a long-term injury.

Murray has to be worried about what his body is telling him and that is why he, as well as his former coach Mark Petchey, is convinced we will not see the best of him for at least two years.