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By Sean Rudolph
(June 15, 2010) Andy Murray believes he needs more match play on grass to prepare for Wimbledon. He'll get exactly that when he faces former Wimbledon champion Lleyton Hewitt in a grass-court exhibition match in London on Thursday.
"He would have liked to have played a couple more matches last week but he has a couple of exhibition matches lined up this week," Murray's mother, Judy Murray, told the Press Association today. "He is playing Lleyton Hewitt on Thursday so he'll start to build in more competitive match practice into his preparation from Thursday onwards."
In the aftermath of his Queen's Club loss to Mardy Fish last week, Murray, who has played just two singles matches on grass this season, cited the need for more match play to sharpen his game for Wimbledon, which starts on Monday.
The fourth-ranked Murray will face Hewitt, who upset top-seeded Roger Federer, 3-6, 7-6(4), 6-4, to capture the Halle championship on Sunday. It was Hewitt's first title since he won Houston red clay in April of 2009.
Five-time champion Federer suffered his first loss in Halle since 2002 when he fell to Germany's Nicolas Kiefer in the semifinals. Federer had won 29 straight matches in Halle and 76 of his last 77 grass-court matches over the last eight years with his lone loss in that span coming to Rafael Nadal in the epic 2008 Wimbledon final.
Murray won Queen's Club last June and went on to reach the Wimbledon semifinals, bowing to Andy Roddick. He played with blue tape on his right knee at Queen's Club last week, but his mother said Murray, who was born with a split patella, has coped with the issue for his entire career and does not expect it to be a problem at Wimbledon.
"Andy's knee problem is something he was born with, so he has always had to deal with it," Judy Murray told the Press Association. "A change of surfaces inflames it a bit but he has a physio working with him full time so it's very carefully looked after."
The emotional deflation of losing his second Grand Slam final to Roger Federer at the Australian Open in January left Murray feeling flat. He has not won a tournament title since capturing his sixth tournament title fo 2009 at Valencia last fall. Murray admitted he needed a break following the Australian Open final loss.
"I put a lot of effort in," Murray told Hugh MacDonald of The Herald Scotland. "It wasn’t like I didn’t want to practice or go to the gym. I just felt tired a lot of the time. My results reflected the fact I hadn’t been putting in as much work as normal. But then I started getting back to the gym, getting on the court more, hitting the balls. It’s as simple as that. Nowadays you need to take a break and relax."