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Rankings don’t lie, judging by Dan Evans’s victory in the Schroders Battle of the Brits final. But this week will still be remembered for Andy Murray’s latest return to elite tennis. The younger Murray ducked out of Sunday’s third-place play-off, citing sore shins. And yet he was still on-site at the National Tennis Centre in a new role as James Ward’s coach for the day, offering insightful tactical advice and numerous deadpan variations on “Let’s go!” “I am OK,” Murray told Amazon Prime’s commentary team, when asked why he had chosen not to compete against British No3 Cameron Norrie. “This week is by far the most I have done in the last seven months. My left shin has been an issue coming in, and it was a bit sore after my first match. It was best not to risk it. “For me the results weren’t the important thing this week,” added Murray, who will play his next match in Washington in mid-August after he was pipped by Evans in Saturday’s semi-final. “I wanted to get matches and hopefully play some good tennis. At times, I played really, really well and at times my level dropped quite a lot. If I can get back to the level I was playing at in the first set yesterday and maintain that for longer periods, I will be just fine.” Murray could easily have been in the final, in which case one suspects he might have played through the shin pain. On Saturday, Evans had received a giant slice of luck on match point, when a touch on the net-cord directed his wayward backhand drive back into the court for a clean winner. It was a different story in the final. Evans had the match in his pocket from the start. Even though Edmund struck some huge forehands, as he had all week, Evans kept scurrying to and fro and dinking the ball back until he had earned a miss. Afterwards, Evans agreed that he is probably in the best physical shape of his career, having hooked up with Tim Henman’s former fitness trainer Kieron Vorster early in the lockdown period. “I’m going to take a week off now, and then start to look forward to the restart [of the ATP Tour on Aug 14],” he said, after his 6-3, 6-2 victory. “When tennis resumes, it’s going to be pretty brutal.”
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