Murray hopes he is on the right track

Andy Murray hopes a gruelling off-season pounding an athletics track in Miami will aid his quest to land a maiden grand slam title at the Australian Open.

Murray spent much of the winter in the sunny climes of Florida as he attempts to hone his fitness levels so he is in peak condition when the opening major of the season gets under way in Melbourne on Monday.

The Scot opens his account against Slovakian Karol Beck on Tuesday and will hope to go one better than last year when he reached the final before being comprehensively beaten by Roger Federer.

He is confident his physical state – so often a crucial factor in Australia - will not be an issue.

The fifth seed said: “You never know how you’re going to feel once the tournament starts but I trained well in Miami.

“Then the last week or so has been quite tough for everyone because of the weather.

“But we have managed to get some decent practice indoors and practice outside the last couple of days.

“It has been a good month and a half.”

Although there was nothing unusual about his preparations in America, it was “most of the same stuff”, according to the 23-year-old, he did admit to favouring certain distances on the track.

“Repetitions in the 400 metres are probably the most painful because you’ve got to run pretty quick but it’s also a long enough distance so it starts hurting towards the end,” he said.

“800m is quite tough on the legs but you’re not running as fast, I don’t mind that too much.

“200m is probably the least painful one. But 400m I don’t like but that’s the distance that I am good at running which is not ideal.”

Murray admits he, like the rest of the top players, is entering the tournament with little feeling for where he is in terms of the pecking order.

“You have to trust the training you have done and believe in it,” he said. “That will get rid of some of the doubts.

“But yeah, you won’t have played a big match for quite a long time, no-one has played that many matches.

“The conditions are very different here to what we were playing right at the very end of the year in the indoor tournaments.

“So no-one ever really knows exactly how you are going to play.

“There have always been a few guys getting deep into this tournament that haven’t done that well at slams in the past.

“You just have to try to focus on every match and not get too far ahead of yourself because you are probably not going to play your best right at the beginning.”

Murray’s confidence in his physical state is replicated in his belief that mentally he is stronger now than 12 months ago.

“Experience obviously helps,” he said. “I played quite a lot of big matches last year.

“I went through some very tough patches last year as well especially after the Australian Open. That was something I had to come back from and I learned from it.

“So I think mentally I am probably in a better place.

“In terms of my game I work on things a lot in practice, things that are hopefully going to improve my game.

“Then you just need to go out there and try to put them into the matches when you get the chance to.”