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Japan's Taro Daniel was impressed by the mental toughness and resilience Andy Murray showed after sustaining a major hip surgery. Murray refused to listen to those who were saying he should simply walking away from the game as he underwent two major hip surgeries and made a comeback.
“It’s always crazy to imagine what a person who’s gone through that heavy of an injury has to go through mentally; how much are you going to keep damaging your body? That’s the question I’ve asked myself,” Daniel told Eurosport.
“But it’s amazing because you can see how much passion he has for the game and how and how much he’s willing to go through to just keep playing. And he doesn’t seem to care if he’s not top 10 or top 100 or whatever.
“He was playing Challengers last year, which was amazing, I thought that was crazy; a lot of respect for that. I’m playing him day after tomorrow, so not too much respect, I’m going to prepare for the match as if he was anybody else and see how it goes.
I hope he’s a little tired after this five-setter”.
Daniel set to clash Murray
Daniel made a positive start to his Australian Open campaign as he saw off Marcelo Barrios Vera to set up a Murray clash. On the other side, Murray beat Nikoloz Basillashvili in five sets to clinch his first Australian Open win since 2017.
“It is amazing [to be back],” Murray said in his on-court interview. “It has been a tough three, four years. I have put a lot of work to be back here and I have played on this court many times and the atmosphere has been incredible.
I have always had fantastic support and this is the court I thought I potentially played my last match on. But it is good to be back, winning a five-set battle like that. I could not ask for any more”.