Andy Murray insists he is "fit and raring to go" at the Dubai Tennis Championships having overcome a bout of shingles during a five-week lay-off.
The world number one has not played since a shock fourth-round exit to Mischa Zverev in the fourth round of the Australian Open, and revealed he contracted shingles on returning from Melbourne.
Murray, 29, is top seed in the singles in Dubai but kicks off his campaign on Monday in the doubles alongside Serbian Nenad Zimonjic, with fellow Brit Dan Evans and Gilles Muller of Luxembourg their opponents.
"I'm fine now, I've been training flat-out for the past few weeks," Murray said in quotes reported by BBC Sport.
"I was a bit sick for 10 days, a couple of weeks, after I got back from Australia.
"I feel fresh and ready to go here.
"I had shingles. It's not terrible, but it's not great. I had to go easy for a little while, so I wasn't able to push that hard in training when I got back into it."
Murray faces Tunisian world number 47 Malek Jaziri in the first round of the singles on Tuesday.
