Nadal focuses on his fitness and Murray is optimistic

MADRID (Reuters) – Rafael Nadal, world number two, said Tuesday that restoring the world's top professional tennis rankings was not his priority at the moment.
Aged 32, he has been absent since his September withdrawal from the Flushing Meadows semifinal against Argentina's Juan Martin del Potro following a knee injury. He used the Spanish "Matador" to resume his ankle surgery to solve a previous problem.
The Spaniard resumed training three weeks ago and took part in the tournament in Abu Dhabi where he lost his first match in the semifinal against South African Kevin Anderson on December 28th. , preferring not to play in third position. Nadal is officially scheduled to begin the new season Thursday at the second round of the Brisbane Open.
"My goal is to be happy with what I do and to be competitive all my weeks," said Nadal, who lost his first place finish in Novak Djokovic 's standings last year.
"I want to feel like a competitor every week, I'm in the field and I want to keep fighting for the things that make me alive, the things that motivate me, of course, it's better to be in first place than second, fifth, it's clear. "
Nadal was forced to retire twice from major tournaments in 2018, and the Grand Slam was limited to boosting his Roland Garros record with the 11th title. During the new season, the Spanish stressed his desire to maintain his physical presence to continue playing in the game as long as possible.
"What I do not want to do is suffer more than last year, because suffering sequentially kills you mentally," he said. "I think I have to keep playing tennis."
"My only goal is to keep doing things that make me happy, tennis makes me happy today and I want to keep doing it as best I can for as long as possible."
Murray is optimistic
Andy Murray was optimistic after his first "positive" victory in 2019, beating Australian James Duckworth in the first round of the Brisbane tournament yesterday, after an extended absence in recent months.
Murray has been absent for about 11 months due to a hip injury and a surgery. He returned in mid-2018 to make a difficult start, before returning in September due to an ankle injury.
The 31-year-old former world number one dropped to 240th in the professional rankings.
In the first round of the Brisbane tournament, Murray easily beat Dacworth 6-6-3-3, despite his slow start.
"At first I did not play tennis well, but I think it was positive for me to have been able to do some strikes at the stage where I did well. read the match, which is positive for the first game, "said the Briton. .
Murray pointed out that he was still suffering from hip pain, but that it did not have much impact on his performance. "I've been more coached and I'm training in some training groups here and I've been used to it for a long time," Murray said.
"When I played in June or July, Warkey hurt me … I was not trained enough, I did not play games for a long time and psychologically it was difficult. focuses more on this aspect than on the game or the tactics.Today, I did not think it at all (hip or pain) .I focused only on the game. "Murray will play in the second round against the Russian Daniel Medvedev, who was fired from the first round.
Del Potro retires from "Australia"
Juan Martin del Porto, world number five, has announced his withdrawal from the Australian Open, the first major tournament scheduled for next month, as he has not yet recovered from his injury.
"The recovery is in full swing and I will tell you later where I will go to court," Del Porto said on his Twitter account. Unfortunately, it will not be in Australia. I miss you all. "
"But I'm happy to develop (in terms of wound recovery), I wish you a happy new year and enjoy the New Year."
The Australian championships are held in Malbon from January 14th to 27th.
Del Potro, 30, suffers from a knee fracture that requires him to withdraw from the last Masters of the season.
Del Potro, crowned with only one major title, Flushing Meadows 2009, has suffered many injuries over the course of his career, including four wrist operations in recent years and dropped to 581 in the world rankings at the end of 2015.
After thinking about retiring after a long absence, the Argentinian gradually returned to the competition and found in 2018 some of the glamor of the past. In August, he reached his third best performance in the world, including his win over Roger Federer in the Indian Wells Masters Finals and Flushing Meadows, before losing to Novak Djokovic. – (AFP)