Reigning US Open champion Andy Murray is excited to return to the site where he won his first ever Grand Slam crown in Flushing Meadows in New York.
Murray, who's defending his US Open Championship, has been in New York for the past few days after bowing out to Tomas Berdych in the quarterfinal round of the Cincinnati Masters.
Unlike the usual nine-hour drive from Cincinnati to New York he's made the last couple of years, this year Murray arrived in a private jet to save enough time and energy for the upcoming Grand Slam grind.
"Sometimes I'm still up for driving," Murray told the Guardian on Wednesday. "I drove a few years ago, but it can take a while. When you're trying to prepare for a grand slam it's probably better to try to get there as quickly as possible, and not be cramped in a car for nine hours."
Despite failing to reach the final four in Montreal and Cincinnati, Murray said he's satisfied with his results from the warm-up US Open campaign. For now, Murray is planning to keep everything checked - including his plan to stick with one hotel - for him to stay focused for the US Open battle.
"I'm glad I've played 10 matches, including the doubles, the past couple of weeks. That's decent. It could have been better, but it definitely could have been worse as well. Going in there with a decent amount of matches is good."
"Wimbledon I'm at home, then the US Open I'll stay in the same hotel. It's pretty quiet. You need to try to conserve as much energy as you can during the slams, so the more you can get away from everything, the less noise, the better," Murray told the Guardian.
Moreover, Murray said he wasn't surprised at all to see Nadal dominating the competition throughout the season, insisting that a healthy Nadal, and even Roger Federer, will always be hard to deal with in any Grand Slam event.
"You've got to remember the year before he'd won the Australian Open and the US Open and numerous Masters series. I think people were more concerned [this year] about how his knees were going to respond to the hard courts, and how much he was actually going to play on them. When Rafa's fit, or Roger's fit, the surface doesn't really matter. They're going to be there or thereabouts in all the major events.
"I was surprised, though, by how many finals he's made. I'm not surprised how well he's playing, but to make so many finals in the tournaments he's played since he's come back is very impressive," Murray said of Nadal.
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