After a 39-day hiatus Roger Federer returns to a tennis court in serious competition today and wouldn't you know it, his opponent is the one for whom his respect is more than just a word that world No1's occasionally bandy about.

The one time Andy Murray defeated Federer (their career record is 1-1) in the second round of the Cincinnati Masters in August 2006, his hair was short, his world ranking was No21 and he had just teamed up with Brad Gilbert, the American coach, on a mission to make a statement that British tennis had not witnessed for years.

Murray had his extravagantly long hair cut last week, he is No12 after a spell inside the top ten, he plays Federer in the first round of the Barclays Dubai Open this afternoon, while Gilbert is fresh from a couple of weeks in France trying to help point Alex Bogdanovic, the British No2 towards the top 100 ranking to which he has consistently aspired.

Federer has spent more time in Dubai - more or less his second home - than anywhere since his defeat in the semi-finals of the Australian Open by Novak Djokovic, of Serbia, and all those practice session hours, working things through for himself, will require immediate translation to the match court if he is hold off the British No1.

Murray is extremely relaxed, saying he had an inkling he would play Federer in the first round of a tournament whose strength is underlined by such an imposing match early on. “The court here is really quick, it's pretty fair and to get a chance to play Federer at this stage of the outdoor hardcourt stretch, you can see where your game's at.”

Sergiy Stakhovsky, the Ukrainian, whom Murray defeated in the 2004 US Open boys' final, became the first “lucky loser” in 17 years to win an ATP title when he defeated Ivan Ljubicic, the home favourite in the Zagreb Indoor event. Stakhovsky had been beaten in the penultimate round of qualifying but earned a place in the main draw as the highest-ranked loser when Fabrice Santoro, of France, withdrew.