Mismatch in Majorca as
Murray faces novice teen
By Simon Briggs
When Andy Murray decided to play
in this week’s Challenger event in
Majorca, he was looking for a gen-
tler match that would ease him
back into the swing of singles after
two tough defeats on the American
hard-court circuit.
But while Murray was expecting
to drop down a level, he cannot
have imagined that he would be
drawn against an untried 17-year-
old whose career prize-money
stands at $150. This could turn out
to be the biggest mismatch since he
scored a 6-0, 6-0 “double-bagel”
victory over Luxembourg’s Laurent
Bram, a club coach, in the Davis
Cup eight years ago.
Murray’s ranking of No 329
places him lower than any of the 41
men who earned direct entry to the
Rafa Nadal Open. There is even a
top-100 player in there, in Germa-
ny’s Peter Gojowczyk.
But the tournament did not re-
ceive enough applications to run
the usual qualification event for the
last seven places. As a result, they
were almost reduced to signing up
anyone they could find.
Hence the appearance of Mur-
ray’s opponent, Imran Sibille – a
trainee at the Rafa Nadal Academy,which is hosting the event – as an
alternative. Sibille does not have an
ATP ranking and is equal 2,792nd
on the International Tennis Federa-
tion’s system. Apart from Bram –
who had no ranking at all – he is the
weakest player statistically Murray
has faced since he was 18 years old.
Assuming that Murray wins to-
day – which you would hope he will- he is due to face third seed Nor-
bert Gombos in the second round.
Gombos, a 29-year-old Slovakian, is
considerably more experienced,
having reached a career high of
No 80 in the world two years ago, 36
places above where he stands now.
While Murray builds up his
match fitness again after the im-
plantation of his metal hip in Janu-
ary, the rest of the so-called “Big
Four” are seeded Nos 1, 2 and 3 at
the US Open. Novak Djokovic opens
his campaign against world No 76
Roberto Carballes Baena. Roger
Federer has been drawn against In-
dian qualifier Sumit Nagal.his mid-fifties like Felgate. He has
not found a replacement yet, and
will be working with Britain’s Davis
Cup captain, Leon Smith, as a
locum during this event.
In the longer term, he would pre-
fer to hire someone British, for lo-
gistical reasons, but admitted that
the list of potential candidates was
not a long one. “There’s plenty of
people with coaching qualifica-
tions,” said Evans, who has little re-
spect for such certificates.
“But not many who have actually
coached on the tour.”
While Edmund is not due to playuntil tomorrow, British No 2 Cam-
eron Norrie is scheduled immedi-
ately after Evans against French
qualifier Gregoire Barrere. Harriet
Dart came through qualifying on
Friday and will play another quali-
fier, Romania’s Ana Bogdan, in the
first match on Court 14.ELLA LING/BPI/REXSafety net: Andy
Murray meets
untried Imran
Sibille, 17, in the
Rafa Nadal OpenThe Daily Telegraph Monday 26 August 2019 *** 25
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