From America's west coast to America's east coast, Andy Murray has been putting in the training hours during this close season. So intense have Murray's workouts been that his coach, Brad Gilbert, trusts that he will have Murray wearing a sleeveless muscle-vest, Rafael Nadal-style, at Wimbledon sometime in the future.

Gilbert talks of Murray, who is currently a little on the skinny side, becoming "ripped" and "busting his pipes", by which he means acquiring some serious bicep muscles and then having them on display in one of those Nadal tops. "I'm hoping that I'll have Andy in a sleeveless top at Wimbledon, probably in 2008, as next year might be too soon. But if he's going to do that he's going to have to work on his tan. He's fair-skinned so he's a bit pale," Gilbert said yesterday.

The off season has not been time off for Murray. Far from it. During their first winter 'break' together, Gilbert has had Murray sweating it out for the best part of a month, first at the coach's home near San Francisco in California and then at Nick Bollettieri's academy in Florida.

And it was not just Gilbert who has had Murray toiling in the United States. Murray also went through some lung-scorching, Popeye sessions with Mark Grabow, a fitness trainer renowned in America for putting muscle on athletes, and did some track work with Michael Johnson, a former Olympic sprint champion. There were undoubtedly times, as Murray did yet another 200-metre sprint and his legs went wobbly, when he must have been wishing that Gilbert was not neighbours with Johnson.

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