After Back Surgery, a Relaxed Murray Lowers Sights MELBOURNE, Australia - For years, Andy Murray's right hand shot so frequently to his back after arduous or even routine points that it sometimes seemed permanently attached. Murray looked, at times, like an old man, or at least a man far older than 26. His 2013 tennis season, then, was divided into the portion of the year where he managed the back pain and triumphed at Wimbledon and the portion of the year when he shut down his schedule and opted for back surgery. It was the back pain line of demarcation. From that historic high to the surgical low, Murray arrived here recently in advance of the Australian Open. He played his initial news conference both loose and cautious. Loose in the sense that he cracked jokes. Like when asked about all new coaches working with other elite players, and how he compared that relationship adjustment to wooing a new girlfriend, minus the flowers. He even smiled. Twice. Cautious in the sense that Murray made it clear that he did not expect to win the tournament and had no earthly idea how far he might advance. He factored in the layoff and the surgery and the lack of matches since the new season started, and he looked forward into the great unknown of early 2014 and shrugged. He then offered a Grand Slam equivalent of a disclaimer, a tennis "but." "Obviously I need to be pretty patient with myself and not expect too much," he said. "But you never know," he added. Murray is scheduled to face the 112th-ranked Go Soeda of Japan in the first round Tuesday. If that matchup sounds like the perfect way to ease into an uncertain Australian Open, then consider the rest of Murray's draw, which reads more like "Nightmare on Batman Avenue," where Melbourne Park is located. Should the tournament unfold according to seeding, Murray, seeded fourth, would face Roger Federer, seeded sixth, in the quarterfinals. Should Murray dispatch Federer in that imaginary scenario, Rafael Nadal, the top seed, could await in the semifinals. Their half of the draw is stocked with, if not sure challengers, then plenty who could mount a challenge: Juan Martín del Potro (5) and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (10) and Milos Raonic (11) and John Isner (13) among them. Novak Djokovic, the Serbian seeded second who fortuitously happened to avoid that half of the draw, said he considered Murray "a main contender to win" and "one of the main contenders to win every major he plays." But there was simply no way to tell, as there will not be, until Murray and his surgically repaired back endure a grueling match or five. On Saturday, Murray met with the news media, in the main interview room, the setting there among the stranger set-ups in pro tennis, if not sports. The players sit beneath reporters as they answer questions, which reporters lob from a balcony above or rows that descend on the sides. It's like they're lobbing queries down at a deity; true, probably, in Murray's likely-to-be-knighted case. Murray appeared unburdened, loose, relaxed even, and perhaps this was the result of the events of 2013. Before Murray, Wimbledon had not crowned a home men's champion since Fred Perry in 1936. All those years, all the thousands of questions about the pressure and the spotlight and what it would mean to win, evaporated in the euphoria of that actually happening. But Murray struggled throughout the remainder of the season, when he did play. Stanislas Wawrinka knocked him from the United States Open in the quarterfinals, before Murray elected to have the surgery after a Davis Cup competition in September. His back simply hurt too much. Murray returned at the Qatar Open, which started in late December. He won his first match and fell to Florian Mayer in his second, and his back stiffened up some. He then traveled here to focus on practice in advance of the Australian Open. He pronounced his health "good" over the weekend. But all the practice in the world, Murray noted, could not prepare him for "pressure and nerves and stress and stuff, you know, dealing with big crowds again when you've been away from that for a few months," which "doesn't straightaway feel normal again." In last year's Australian Open, Murray advanced to the final, where he lost to Djokovic. His back bothered him even then. He sometimes required hours of treatment after routine matches. His back feels better now than it did then, although it is difficult for Murray to quantify the improvement. He will know more soon enough. The so-called Big Four - Murray, Nadal, Djokovic and Federer - have won 34 of the past 35 Grand Slam tournaments. That nearly accounts for the past nine years. The past eight Australian men's singles titles have gone to three competitors: Djokovic, Federer and Nadal. Murray, no longer a tennis geriatric, is not likely to join them soon, not in 2014 at least. "You never know," he said.