Boris Becker wowed by 'simply incredible' Andy Murray after Qatar Open final run, excited for Wimbledon hopes

Updated 28/02/2023 at 08:00 GMT

Andy Murray had a week to remember at the Qatar Open as he won four three-set matches before losing to Daniil Medvedev in the final. Murray, 35, has secured three victories this season after facing a match point and has also won several lengthy encounters. Eurosport's Boris Becker has been wowed by Murray's form and expects him to be a threat on grass in the summer.

Highlights: Medvedev beats Murray to claim the Qatar Open title

Boris Becker has praised Andy Murray’s resurgent form as “simply incredible” and is already looking forward to seeing how he competes at Wimbledon this summer.

Three-time Grand Slam champion No. 1 Murray finished 2022 lamenting his physical condition, but recently said he now has more “belief” in his body than ever.

All six of his victories this season have gone the distance, including two five-set matches at the Australian Open.

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He has also won three matches from match point down this year, including saving five against Jiri Lehecka to reach the Qatar Open final at the weekend.

“Simply incredible,” former world No. 1 Becker told Eurosport.

“I wouldn’t have expected him to come back that strong after his hip surgery. How he wrestles down his opponent, mostly over three sets, and also playing great tennis, as well in the final against Danill Medvedev.

“It is incredible how he managed to come back like this, and I want to look ahead a little bit. If he keeps on playing like this and winning matches, I’m looking forward to Wimbledon. I think he might be on a good level there - on his favourite surface, which is grass.”

Murray couldn’t win his first title in four years at the Qatar Open as he was beaten by former world No. 1 Medvedev in the final.

He has now opted to pull out of this week’s Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships due to injury.

Speaking after the final, he said: “At my age and with some of the issues that I’ve got, I do have to be mindful of those things, and I can’t just keep going until something happens.

“I need to be a bit smarter with that. So I’ll chat to my team and see how I feel tomorrow.”

Murray moved up to No. 52 in the world rankings after making the final in Doha.

Asked about his ambitions after the tournament, he said: “I think it's important to have goals and targets and, you know, some of those goals are different to maybe what they were five, 10 years ago.

“But I still have ambitions of winning tournaments and having deep runs in major events, winning a certain number of matches in my career. I'd like to try to get to 800 match wins, which, I think I'm like 75 away from that.

“There are little things that you can do to keep yourself motivated. Part of it is seeing how far I can go with the physical limitation that I have.

“I didn't know how much I was going to be able to play or if I'd be able to compete at this level again. So now that I know that I'm able to, I want to see how far that can go because, yeah, it's a challenge and something that I'm proud of the results that I'm having, with a large physical limitation.”

Former world No. 1 Murray has undergone two hip surgeries and is playing with a metal hip.

Novak Djokovic is the top seed in Dubai this week.

Djokovic is into his 378th week as world No. 1, breaking Steffi Graf's all-time record for the most weeks at the top of the rankings.

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The 2023 Australian Open was live and the French Open will follow on discovery+, the Eurosport app and at eurosport.com

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