Andy Murray set to compete in Dubai and Miami events as he hints at playing full-clay court season

Andy Murray admits he is leaning towards playing a full clay-court season on the ATP Tour instead of dropping to the ATP Challenger Tour as he “wants to be playing at his current level”.

Having made his 2021 competitive debut at the Challenger event in Biella in February, Murray moved up to the ATP a few weeks later as he took part in the Open Sud de France, losing in the first round.

The former world No 1 continued his ATP journey at the AMRO World Tennis Tournament in Rotterdam this week, winning his opening match against Robin Haase before going down 7-5, 6-2 against world No 8 Andrey Rublev on Wednesday.

Andrey beats Andy ⚡️@AndreyRublev97 moves into the Rotterdam last eight, defeating Murray 7-5 6-2#abnamrowtt pic.twitter.com/sVJWCnFCli

— Tennis TV (@TennisTV) March 3, 2021

The 33-year-old is yet to confirm his schedule, but he is expected to play at the Dubai Tennis Championships and Miami Open later in March.

“I want to play as much as I can but also bearing in mind I have to be smart with the decisions about which tournaments to play,” he said.

“I’ll have next week off and then hopefully be able to play in Dubai and Miami and then see from there.’

The clay-court season kicks off at the beginning of April while the other option would be to play on the Challenger Tour, but Murray admits he prefers to stick to ATP-level tennis.

He added: “There’s the option to play the full clay-court swing or drop down and play Challengers to get more matches. I feel I want to be playing at this level.”