Rest will be handy for Andy's bid

Published on Monday 26 May 2008 10:34

ANDY MURRAY is hoping a day of rest will provide the cure he needs to prolong his challenge on the red dust of Roland Garros.

The British No.1 struggled through his first-round French Open match against 17-year-old home player Jonathan Eysseric yesterday after having been laid low with a throat infection for the past week.

Murray finished his course of antibiotics yesterday but has been unable to put in the work he would normally do in the run-up to a grand slam event.

His second-round match against Argentina's Jose Acasuso will not take place before Wednesday, which at least gives him time to recover from his 6-2, 1-6, 4-6, 6-0 6-2 tribulations against Eysseric.

Murray said: "The thing with a virus is that if you go and do a lot of work physically, your body tries to recover from the physical work you're doing and not so much getting over the illness.

"I had to make sure I wasn't tiring myself out too much and trying to get a lot of sleep. I'll take Monday relatively easy because I want to try to recover from a five-set match. But I'll work hard in the gym tomorrow."

The No.10 seed from Dunblane would be wise to work on his strategy on the red clay he dislikes if his drop-shot obsession against Eysseric was anything to go by.

Time after time in the first three sets he squandered points attempting to outfox his opponent with deft shots that did not work.

It was something he was happy to admit and his tactics are likely to be different against Acasuso.

"My style of play sometimes isn't great on clay," Murray said. "Sometimes it's good. But I haven't had much practice in the last five days. I've not been too well. I was trying to finish too many of the points early in the second and third sets with drop shots and going for the wrong shots. I probably won't do as many in my next match. I'm just happy to come through regardless of how my game style was out there," he added.

Acasuso, who beat Slovakian Dominic Hrbaty 6-4, 6-2, 6-4, is likely to provide a much tougher challenge.