Brisbane International: Gilles Muller fit for Aussie assault after time out due to elbow problem

RAFA-buster Gilles Muller is running down the clock on a 2017 season in which he added further credibility to the theory that men’s tennis is an older man’s game.

Gilles Muller hits up at the Pat Rafter Arena ahead of the Brisbane International.

RAFA-buster Gilles Muller is running down the clock on a 2017 season in which he added further credibility to the theory that men’s tennis is an older man’s game.

Muller, the seventh seed for the Brisbane International, beat Rafael Nadal at Wimbledon this year in a run of midyear form that took the 34-year-old to a career-high ranking of No. 21.

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But he had to call a premature end to his season in mid-September because of elbow tendinitis in order to be fit for the Australian circuit that he tested further with a practice session on Tuesday at Pat Rafter Arena.

“It came to a stage where the injury can get worse and can influence the start of my 2018 season,’’ Muller said.

Gilles Muller hits up at the Pat Rafter Arena ahead of the Brisbane International.

“I want to play for a few more years.’’

The Luxembourg left-hander won his first ATP Tour in January in Sydney, 13 years after his first ATP final and 16 years after he first joined the tour.

Muller stared down Nadal, the ultimate tennis warrior, 15-13 in the fifth set of their fourth-round match at Wimbledon.

The Luxembourg left-hander, who saved four break points at 9-all in the fifth set, made a quarter-final exit at Wimbledon, finishing a grasscourt season where he won one of his two titles for the year at Rosmalen, the Netherlands and made the semi-finals at Queen’s Club.

“Winning a title was something that I was working for my whole career and I had to wait 16 years — you can imagine the weight that I had on my shoulders to get that first trophy,’’ Muller said.

Muller beat Rafael Nadal in an epic fourth round Wimbledon match in 2017.

Muller had to step off the tour for six months in 2013 to rest a previous elbow injury, which he said proved beneficial to his career as he was able to work hard on his fitness and strength at the exclusion of practice.

“You can see also in Roger (Federer), it’s kind of the same example. He took a couple months off (in late 2016 before his two-major season in 2017) and was able to work very hard,’’ he said.

With Kei Nishikori’s withdrawal from the Brisbane International, the new eighth and last seed will be Argentina’s Diego Schwartzmann.

Originally published as Brisbane International: Gilles Muller fit for Aussie assault after time out due to elbow problem