Murray skips French Open to focus on Wimbledon

Andy Murray has withdrawn from the French Open and will focus on building up to Wimbledon.

The Scot, who turned 35 yesterday, said in February that he was planning to skip the whole claycourt season, but then changed his mind and took a wild card into the Madrid Open.

He produced some of his best form since hip surgery to reach the third round, beating Dominic Thiem and Denis Shapovalov before having to pull out of what would have been a first clash with Novak Djokovic since 2017 because of illness.

He remained in the Roland-garros draw and it appeared Murray, who has reunited with coach Ivan Lendl, could still have featured in the year’s second grand slam after all, but he has now pulled out and is sticking to his original plan.

Quite where Murray will play on grass remains to be seen, though, as the tennis world waits for decisions from the ATP and WTA on how to respond to Wimbledon and the Lawn Tennis Association’s banning of Russian and Belarusian players from this summer’s tournaments.

The removal of all ranking points is very much on the table and would severely affect the tour events in particular. Murray had talked about potentially playing in the Surbiton Trophy, a second-tier Challenger event in London starting on May 30, before then heading to Stuttgart for the ATP tournament.

In 2017, he also signed a deal to compete at Queen’s Club for the duration of his career.

Meanwhile, Djokovic lifted his first trophy of the year at the Italian Open yesterday, beating Stefanos Tsitsipas, of Greece, 6-0, 7-6 to secure his sixth Rome title and signal a return to form ahead of the French Open.

“I’ve been building my form the last few weeks,” the Serb said. “It couldn’t be better timing coming into Roland-garros.”

Djokovic, who was deported because of his unvaccinated status ahead of the Australian Open, had not won a tournament since the Paris Masters trophy in November.