Andy Murray thinks his enforced layoff for the past month may aid his chances in Melbourne.

"Because it's such a long year, I didn't want to spend the last eight weeks in the gym every single day and then get to Miami for the off season and be tired and not want to do the training," Murray said. "In some ways [the time off] can be a good thing because you can work on something that you might not necessarily have worked on as much. I had to do things to keep my mind fresh because it was six, seven weeks in London, seeing the physios and doctors and doing the same things every day, so we worked on different things on the practice court, which was nice."

Murray has never been past the fourth round of the Australian Open despite being among the favourites for the past two years. In his quest to put the record straight he’s leaving no stone unturned in reviewing his preparation plans over the off season.

In a new move, Murray will spend the entire off season at his training break in Miami. For the first time he won’t be returning to Scotland for Christmas. This is a precaution as earlier this year, on the return flight to the Middle East for a tournament in Doha he picked up a virus which hindered him for the next month and he feels it contributed to his loss to Fernando Verdasco.         

He’s also choosing to open the year with the Hopman Cup which he feels will give him much better acclimatization to the Australian summer heat. 

“I was coming back from Miami and going to Scotland for a few days over Christmas so it was three, four weeks of training, then back to Scotland, where it's cold, go to Doha, it's cold,” Murray said. “It's like two weeks of bad weather and you go to Australia and you've got basically four or five days to get used to the heat again. I think doing it this way will work much better.”