AS TIM Henman succumbed further to the back problems that are increasingly likely to plague what is left of his career, the trouble for Andy Murray’s camp was how to tell him to rein back the colt-like frenzy with which he is attacking the first dramatic phase of life as a senior.

Henman says that the time is not yet right to test his back, not only on a long flight to Japan but in the heat of the battle, preferring to wait until the Madrid Masters the week after next before returning to the circuit. Murray may be in the field with him, although the runner-up to Roger Federer in the Thailand Open yesterday would probably require a wild card into the qualifying.

One of the most diverting elements of the arrival of fresh blood on the tennis circuit is how many people want a piece of it. The post Davis Cup plan was for Murray to play in five consecutive Challenger events and build his ranking, whereas one wild card into the event in Bangkok, and his return on it, has done the job for him.

“We’ve had to make so many snap decisions in recent weeks, booking flights, changing schedules, responding to different situations,” Judy, his mother, said yesterday. “You cannot turn down these opportunities when they are offered and they have worked out really well for Andy so far. The thing is, he thrives on the competitition, which is normal when you’re young and going well, but there comes a time when you have to decide to take a bit of a holiday.”

Thus the Murray family and Mark Petchey, his coach, will sit down the week after next and map out where they want him to play the rest of this year and the beginning of 2006, with the Australian Open in January fast moving into focus. As of last night, Murray was still scheduled to play in a Challenger in Mons, Belgium, starting tomorrow, though that would mean a jet-lagged late arrival and the prospect of a jaded player.

The going is not going to get any easier, even if he doesn’t play Federer for another year. “What excites me,” Judy said, “is that there is still so much to come, so many areas to improve on, the next of which is to get more out of his first serve. When it goes in, it’s big, but it’s not consistent yet and there’s also a lot of physical development still to come.

“He will have learnt an awful lot from playing Federer but there’s more to learn when he watches the video. There were a significant number of times when he tried to play a big shot too early in a rally, which may have had something to do with the opposition.”

Petchey concurred. “It is almost how you handle the aura of Federer than the player himself,” he said. “He doesn’t give you anything, bad points, bad body language, nothing. You always feel you’ve got to play that little bit better than maybe you need to. We’ve been watching Roger for months, studying him because he is where Andy wants to get to. I felt Andy was clear in his own mind the way he wanted to play and the thing about him as ever was how impressively well he went about his business. There will be other times.”