Dejected Murray pulls out of Wimbledon
The Andy Murray will he, won’t he play at Wimbledon saga was finally answered on Sunday with a Facebook post from the man himself.
The 31-year-old former World No.1 was due to play Frenchman Benoit Paire yesterday (Tuesday) but pulled out after discussions with his team.
He wrote:“It is with a heavy heart that I’m announcing that I’ll be withdrawing from Wimbledon this year.
“I’ve made significant progress in practice and matches over the past ten days, but after lengthy discussions with my team, we’ve decided that playing best-of-five-set matches might be a bit too soon in the recovery process.
“We did everything we could to try to be ready in time. I will start practising on the hard courts from tomorrow and continuing with my rehab and recovery, and I’m looking forward to the US hard-court season.
“Thanks for all the messages of support and I’m excited to finally be back playing after so long out.”
After losing to Nick Kyrgios at Queen’s in a encouraging performance, he defeated Stan Wawrinka last week at Eastbourne before going out to British No.1 Kyle Edmund.
Hopes were high among his fans that he would take his place at SW19 where he has a 57-10 win record and had advanced to at least the quarter-finals in 10 consecutive years but it was not to be.
Now the focus is on his big brother Jamie who has decided not to defend the mixed doubles’title he won in 2017 with Martina Hingis in order to concentrate on the men’s doubles with Brazilian Bruno Soares.
When the event begins later this week, the No.5 seeds will face Italy’s Paolo Lorenzi and Spain’s Albert Ramos-Vinolas in the first round.