Murray shrugs of injury ahead of opener
LONDON: Andy Murray yesterday announced his wife Kim is expecting their second child, but doesn’t expect it to have an effect on his Wimbledon title defence.
The world number one also reassured that he is again fully fit after dealing with a hip problem last week which forced him to skip a pair of London exhibition appearances.
The Murrays married in 2015 and have a one-year-old daughter, Sophia.
“We’re both obviously very happy and looking forward to it,” the 30-yearold said.
“I’ll be fine dealing with that. It’s certainly not a distraction in the slightest.”
Murray starts his campaign today in the traditional holder’s opening match as he faces Russia’s Alexander Bublik.
Murray said he has put his hip worries behind him, and can now concentrate on his tennis.
“The last few days have been very good. Practice each day has got a little bit better. It’s been slightly stop-start preparations. But each day I’ve felt better,” he said.
Murray will be bidding for his third home grand slam crown, with a strong favourites’s challenge from Roger Federer, fighting fit and holding four 2017 ATP titles at age 35.
Rafael Nadal is also seen as a threat, although the Spaniard opted to skip the Queens grass tune-up and rest before hitting on grass in his native Mallorca for a week prior to a London arrival.
The Scot admitted that his hip niggle had been causing concern last week as he struggled to prepare.
“Obviously this is an extremely important tournament, so you worry a little bit. It’s a little bit stressful if you can’t practice for a few days,” he said.
“You really want to be preparing, training as much as you can to get ready and make you feel better, especially when you hadn’t had any matches.
“I’ve had hip problems since I was very young, it’s not something new to me. It’s just been very sore the last few weeks. It was giving me quite a lot of trouble moving to certain shots and getting into certain positions.
“That was why I needed to take the break, to try and give it a chance to calm down a bit. I spent a lot of time with my physio and doing some extra exercises in my warmup, strengthening exercises, a lot of stuff to try to loosen off that area.
“I just tried to think positively. I tried to make the best decisions along with my team to give myself the best chance to feel good on Monday. I feel like I’ve done that.”
Murray could find his ranking under threat in two weeks time, with Federer, Nadal and Novak Djokovic having chances to take the top spot based on their Wimbledon performances.
“I’m not thinking about that right now, That’s not what my focus is,” Murray said.
“But maybe (I would) if there’s a match later in the tournament where if I win, I would stay at number one or if I lose, maybe I would lose the ranking to one of the other guys – but not right now.”
On court today, in addition to Murray, two-time winner Petra Kvitova faces Johanna Larsson, while Switzerland’s Stan Wawrinka takes on Russian Daniil Medvedev.
American Venus Williams plays Belgium’s Elise Mertens, and Nadal makes his start against Australian John Millman. British sixth seed Johanna Konta will test her fitness after a fall last week at Eastbourne, taking on Hsieh Su Wei.
Jo-Wilfried Tsonga of France pays Briton Cameron Norrie, second seed Simona Halep faces Marina Erakovic and German Philipp Kohlschreiber clashes with seventh seed Marin Cilic.