The last place any tennis player should come seeking tea and sympathy is the orange clay of the Monte Carlo Country Club, a fabulous spot by the Mediterranean where the millionaires sitting on the dining terrace sometimes like to hiss and whistle and treat the athletes with all the reverence they usually reserve for deckhands and croupiers.
Monte Carlo or bust? Andy Murray gets fired up in training on the orange clay ahead of his meeting with Radek Stepanek Photo: GETTY IMAES
It was a hesitant and unhappy Andy Murray who played a rotten opening match here last season, and then felt the full caustic blast of the French Riviera as he walked off court. This spring he has arrived for the start of the European clay-court swing in the worst sequence of form of his career.
On those sun-lit afternoons that bring out the turquoises and neon blues in the water, there is no prettier tournament in tennis, yet it is possible to detect a slight viciousness on the Côte d’Azur that you do not get from, say, the Sloanes of London’s Queen’s Club.
There must be some concern among Murray’s entourage that when the Scot opens against Radek Stepanek, a Czech who saved two match points during a final-set tie-break against Cypriot Marcos Baghdatis in the first round, he will again hear what it sounds like to meet with the disapproval of the white-shirted Euros, the tax-avoiders and the oligarchs.
There are easier places to come when you have not won even a set since January.
The mood around the white tablecloths can change quickly, from indifference to indignation, in just one circuit of the bread basket. If a seed is in trouble, as Murray was last year when he won just three games against Germany’s Philipp Kohlschreiber, you can be sure they will put down their knives and forks to watch.
nini/telegraph
nini/telegraph
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