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Andy Murray happy with his performance

On a pleasant Friday afternoon, Andy Murray showed glimpses of the form that propelled him to two Grand Slam titles.

The Scot hit his groundstrokes quite well as he beat Switzerland’s Stanislas Wawrinka 6-3 6-4 to take the fifth place at the Mubadala World Tennis Championship in Abu Dhbai.

“It was nice to be playing in the heat of the day. Since I have come back from a back injury, there is still a bit of stiffness in the body. So playing in the heat obviously helped a lot today,” Murray later told reporters in the post-match Press conference.

The Briton looked at ease with himself right from the word go even though Wawrinka did occasionally trouble him with some stinging forehand winners and some delightful one-handed backhands. But Murray remained patient even though he was broken in the seventh game of the first set after breaking Wawrinka in the sixth. The man from Dunblane shifted gear and broke Wawrinka again in the 8^th game and then he held his serve in the next game to take the first set. “Yes, it was a very positive performance. I played a lot better than I did yesterday. I moved better. So that’s obviously very encouraging. But yes, there are still a lot of areas that I need to work on. I must improve more in order to play better tennis in the big events.

“I know nobody expects me to play my best tennis right now. You need time after coming back from a big injury. But I am happy with the way I played here, especially today. It was a great way to the start the season here in Abu Dhabi as you get to test yourself against the top five-six players. It gives you a chance to play quality matches.”

Next week’s Doha ATP tourney, Murray’s next event, will also see him take part in the doubles section. “That was a conscious decision to play doubles there as I need more and more hours on the court to get myself in prime position. After all, in less than two weeks, I will need to play five-setters in the Australian Open. So I need more matches before going into the Australian Open,” the current world number four revealed.

Murray refused to confirm whether he would play a part in a new tennis league. Inspired by the Indian cricket board’s Indian Premier League, India’s doubles star Mahesh Bhupathi is planning to organise a similar league in tennis in 2014 and Murray says he finds the idea (of having six franchises ) quite interesting. “It’s very innovative and sounds very exciting. But at this moment I am not in a position to say whether I would participate in it or not.”