Andy Murray is looking to take the confidence he gained from reaching No. 1 this past season into 2017.
Murray described getting to No. 1 as the "hardest thing" he achieved during a season in which he won a Grand Slam (Wimbledon), a gold medal (Summer Olympics) and reached two other Slam finals (Australian Open, French Open). The consistency required to reach the top spot left him drained, he told local reporters in Abu Dhabi, where he’s playing an exhibition.
"I was really, really tired,” he said, “more tired than I’ve been at the end of any season that I’d finished before."
But he hasn’t found it tough to get motivated again as he chases his first Australian Open title. A year ago, he fell in the final to Novak Djokovic, and has also reached the final four other times in his career.
"It's a tournament I've played some of my best tennis at and never quite managed to win, so it's quite easy to look at [building] towards that event," he said. "The Australian Open was not that difficult for me to set goals for the beginning of the year, but I think once the Australian Open is done, it’s four, five months until the next Slam. That’s where I need to make sure I stay focused.
"That’s a period of the year where I have struggled at times in the past, post-Australian Open. Sometimes in Indian Wells and Miami I haven’t played so well, and through February, and I’m going to try and do a better job at that next year.''
Murray has changed his schedule, playing Abu Dhabi and Doha for the first time in a few years. He said he wanted to do something "a little bit different" going into the Australian Open.
Being No. 1, though, hasn't been a big change for him.
"I don’t feel too much different,” he admitted. “It’s a great thing to achieve. I’m happy I managed to get to No.1. It’s something I’d never done, so to do it at 29 is pretty cool. There’s not loads of things now, at this stage in my career, that I’ve never done before, so any time you achieve something new it's great.
"...Maybe I feel, slightly, like I have more responsibility— maybe a little bit—but in terms of demand on my time, I don’t feel too much.”
The 29-year-old likes the conditions in Melbourne, and said he would be going into the tournament with "a lot of confidence" from his winning run during the second half of last season.