Murray has been in relaxed mood in Miami

By Kheredine Idessane in Miami

Was it Crocket and Tubbs' white suits with the sleeves rolled up in THAT 80s cop show?

Or perhaps Dan Marino's exploits with the Dolphins?

Or possibly none of the above, as Andy Murray is probably too young to remember all that anyway?

Whatever the reason, the young Scot loves Miami, just loves it.

And not just because he's the defending champion around these parts.

Miami has become his home from home. He trains out here twice a year (December and then post-Wimbledon) using, among other things, the university running track to do his 400m reps when he's doing his pre-season conditioning work.

He's even got property out here. A luxury four-bedroom apartment, apparently, on Brickell Avenue, which has stunning views across Biscayne Bay and the Rickenbacker Causeway.

Soderling has been swimming with dolphins in Miami

Little wonder then, given he's so comfortable here, that he scooped his first Master Series title of 2009 here at the Crandon Park Tennis Centre.

And, because he's so familiar with the courts (the pace, the bounce, the changeable weather), I'd be very surprised if he didn't go deep into this year's tournament as well.

Not that the Masters Series events are a priority any more. It's the Slams he's seriously targeting now and, if he wins one of them, he'll happily sign for never winning another "lesser" event ever again.

That's why he took so much time off after the Australian Open final and wasn't sharp in Dubai or Indian Wells. Because the next time he wants to be truly at the top of his game is in Paris at the end of May for the French Open.

That said, while the serious preparation for Roland Garros begins once he's done here, he'll want to go into the clay court sweep with a bit of form and some momentum. And it looks like the draw here could well allow him to do that.

He'd have to catch Mardy Fish on a really good day for the Floridean world number 101 to pose too many problems in the opening match. That said, the man from Tampa will have a noisy, partisan crowd of around 13,000 right behind him in the stadium court.

After that, the likes of Feliciano Lopez and Mikhail Youzhny could bar his way to a possible quarter-final with his Indian Wells nemesis, Robin Soderling. Should the first few matches go Murray's way, we could then be looking at a semi-final with the world number one, Roger Federer.

Rafa Nadal and the man Murray beat in the final last year, Novak Djokovic, are both in the other half of the draw, although the latter has already exited the tournament at the hands of Belgium's Olivier Rochus.

In a season of deliberate peaks and troughs, Murray will look to build on the momentum of the run to the quarter-finals in California last week - especially the way he rallied in the second set against Soderling and almost took it to a deciding third.

He seems completely unfazed by the ongoing Davis Cup rammy - surprised, more than anything else, at John Lloyd's critical comments.

The former captain watched Murray play with a damaged wrist in the tie against Poland in Liverpool last year. Anyone who saw the Scot in the post-match media conferences with a big bag of ice crushing his hand will know that a lack of commitment to his country is not something you can realistically accuse Andy Murray of.

And quite frankly, it's hardly his fault if the other British singles players can't serve up a win over the mighty Lithuania. The more Murray plays that level, the more the scary cracks in British men's tennis are papered over.

As well as Mardy, Murray simply has bigger fish to fry, which is why his focus has been on the American hard court circuit. A win here in Florida would notch up his first title of 2010 and put a real spring in his step for the clay.

And I'm sure defending his title would make this place seem even more like home, sweet home.

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