Two-time champ Murray ousted in second round
WIMBLEDON, England — The recurring cries of “Come on, Andy!” at Centre Court meandered somewhere along the continuum from pushing to pleading as two-time champion Andy Murray’s shortest stay at Wimbledon came to a close.
Unable to overcome big John Isner’s big serves, the way he has in the past, Murray lost in the second round to the 20th-seeded player 6-4, 7-6 (4), 6-7 (3), 6-4 on Wednesday night at the All England Club, capping a disappointing afternoon and evening for the locals in the grass-court Grand Slam tournament’s main stadium.
Prior to Murray versus Isner, the host country’s other leading player, reigning U.S. Open champion Emma Raducanu, was eliminated by Caroline Garcia of France 6-3, 6-3.
Asked whether he plans to be back a year from now, Murray, 35, replied: “It depends on how I am physically. If physically I feel good, we’ll try to keep playing. But it’s extremely difficult, with the problems I’ve had with my body the last few years, to make predictions.”
Murray needed multiple operations on his hip and now has an artificial joint. He also recently dealt with an abdominal issue that hampered his preparations last week.
In addition to becoming Britain’s first men’s singles title winner in 77 years at Wimbledon when he claimed the trophy in 2013 — and adding another in 2016 — Murray had managed to make it to at least the third round in his 13 prior appearances. He lost that early twice, in his 2005 debut and in 2021.
“It’s no secret that I am most definitely not a better tennis player than Andy Murray. I might have been just a little bit better than him today. It was an incredible honor to play him on this court, in front of this crowd,” said Isner, the 37-year-old who won the longest match in tennis history by a 70-68 score in the fifth set at Wimbledon in 2010 and reached the semifinals here in 2018. “At the age I’m at now, I need to relish these moments. This was one of the biggest wins of my career.”
Murray, who entered the day 8-0 against Isner, still can hit crisp, clean groundstrokes, and he accumulated merely 13 unforced errors to 39 winners against Isner, who’s 6-foot-10. And Murray still can return about as well as anyone, often getting serves topping 130 mph back over the net. But he could not quite do that enough: Isner hit 36 aces — moving him four away from Ivo Karlovic’s total of 13,728, a record since the ATP began tracking that stat in 1991 — and delivered another 60 unreturned serves across the match’s nearly 31⁄2 hours.
Murray managed only two break points. Both came after about a dozen minutes of play, right after Isner broke to go up 2-1 in the opening set.
Next for Isner is a thirdround matchup against No. 10-seed Jannik Sinner. Other men who won Wednesday included three-time defending champion Novak Djokovic and No. 5 Carlos Alcaraz. No. 3 Casper Ruud — the runnerup to Rafael Nadal at the French Open — lost 3-6, 6-2, 7-5, 6-4 to Ugo Humbert, and No. 15 Reilly Opelka was defeated by Tim Van Rijthoven 6-4, 6-7 (8), 7-6 (7), 7-6 (4).
Only four of the top 11 men in the ATP rankings are in the bracket after Day 3.
In addition to No. 10 Raducanu’s exit, No. 2 Anett Kontaveit lost to Juke Niemeier of Germany 6-4, 6-0, and No. 9 Garbiñe Muguruza, the champion at Wimbledon in 2017 and the French Open in 2016, was beaten by Greet Minnen 6-4, 6-0.
Women’s winners included 2021 runner-up Karolina Pliskova, No. 8 Jessica Pegula, three-time major champion Angelique Kerber and 2017 French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko.
Raducanu won the championship at Flushing Meadows in September as an unseeded player who went through qualifying at age 18.
Since then, she’s had a birthday — and has not made it past the second round at a major.
“There’s no pressure. Like, why is there any pressure? I’m still 19. Like, it’s a joke. I literally won a Slam,” Raducanu said. “Yes, I have had attention. But I’m a Slam champion, so no one’s going to take that away from me. Yeah, if anything, the pressure is on those who haven’t done that.”