JOHN McENROE reckons Andy Murray has positioned himself perfectly for a tilt at his third Grand Slam title at Flushing Meadows this fortnight. The 56-year-old, a friend and former doubles partner of Murray’s coach Jonas Bjorkman, met with the Scot at his tennis academy in New York last week as the days count down to the final major of the season. He feels that the World No 3, who faces controversial Australian Nick Kyrgios in a tasty looking first round tie, comes into the tournament boldened by his first win against Novak Djokovic since the Wimbledon final of 2013 and shouldn’t be too down about his defeat to fifth successive defeat to Roger Federer, the man who could await in the semi-finals at Flushing Meadows, at Cincinnati recently.

“Andy was nice enough to get a quiet hit in and came over to my club which was great,” said McEnroe, who will be working for broadcasters ESPN at the tournament. “We had a little camp going on so the kids were obviously tremendously excited to meet him and he spent a little bit of time with them which was great. We had a nice talk and he is in a good frame of mind and so he should be. He beat [Novak] Djokovic in Montreal to break his losing streak against him, while Roger [Federer] has played some amazing tennis. While he lost to him he was obviously feeling some fatigue from his efforts in Montreal at the time.

“But now that he has broken his streak against Novak he will be feeling better about his chances,” McEnroe added. “He has worked hard over the last 18 months to get himself in the type of position he is right now. He knows he has a better shot of beating Federer in a best of five set match but it obviously didn’t happen at Wimbledon. While Andy has lost five times in a row to Federer now you are talking about one of the best players who has ever lived, who is playing tremendously, so it is not like he is going to walk through this. He know he is going to have to keep adding to his game, and he has Jonas Bjorkman on tap to try to figure out ways he can be more aggressive and take advantage of his skills at the net. We will see if he can bring that to the table at the Open.”

Murray has been one of Kyrgios’ few friends recently, the 20-year-old from Canberra at the centre of controversy after being fined and given a 28-day suspended ban for a rather rude piece of on-court chat aimed in the direction of Stanislas Wawrinka and his girlfriend Donna Vekic. On the court, however, it has been a different matter. The pair have met three times with Murray winning all three without the loss of a set, including twice in Grand Slam play, first at the Australian Open quarter finals then the French Open last 32.