A year ago, Andy Murray arrived in Mason at the top of his game: The first British man in 77 years to win Wimbledon was on his way to New York to defend his U.S. Open title.
But after the Open, Murray underwent back surgery; underwent a coaching change, parting with Ivan Lendl in favor of Amelie Mauresmo; and on Sunday, arrived at the Western & Southern Open searching for his first title since Wimbledon, and maybe for some answers.
'I've messed up a lot of matches this year, to be honest,' said Murray, a two-time Western & Southern champion who's the No. 8 seed here this year.
Murray then cited chapter and verse the matches in which he's lost leads, including last week at the Rogers Cup in Toronto, where he was up 3-0 in the third set but fell to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.
'My year could've looked a lot different had I finished those matches off, to be honest with you. I need to stop messing up when I'm ahead.'
Murray said his lack of consistent results hasn't hurt his confidence this week.
'You come back and you're not going to be maybe as confident because you haven't played so many matches,' Murray said. 'I was more concerned about my health maybe. But now for me is about winning. I feel healthy, and I trained extremely hard to get ready for this period, harder than I had since I came back from the surgery. I played well last week. I just messed up a few games and it cost me.'
Murray, 27, reached the quarterfinals at the Australian Open (losing to Roger Federer), the semifinals at the French Open (losing to Rafael Nadal) and the quarters at Wimbledon (losing to Grigor Dimitrov).
He's playing just his second tournament since Wimbledon after training in Miami with Mauresmo, a former No. 1 women's player and two-time Grand Slam champion.
Mauresmo isn't with Murray here; she'll rejoin him before the U.S. Open. Murray said they communicate via texts and phone calls when she doesn't travel with him.
Among her priorities is to get Murray to come forward more often.
'I used to play a lot more at the net when I was young, a lot of serve and volley,' Murray said. 'That was something that I maybe wasn't encouraged to do and stopped doing. Last week I played pretty well up at the net.
'Still, we haven't spent loads of time together, and it takes time to improve things.'
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