Murray latest to bow out of U.S. Open

NEW YORK — His voice choking, Andy Murray unexpectedly announced Saturday he was withdrawing from the U.S. Open because of a hip injury, adding to the lengthy list of top players who will miss the year’s last Grand Slam tournament.

Murray was seeded No. 2 at Flushing Meadows, where play begins Monday.

“Did pretty much everything that I could to get myself ready here and took a number of weeks off after Wimbledon. I obviously spoke to a lot of hip specialists. Tried obviously resting, rehabbing, to try and get myself ready here,” said Murray, who won the 2012 U.S. Open for the first of his three major championships.

“Was actually practising OK the last few days,” he added, “but it’s too sore for me to win the tournament. And ultimately, that’s what I was here to try and do.”

Murray, who yielded the No. 1 ranking to Rafael Nadal this week, has not played a match since July 12 at Wimbledon, where he was hampered by his hip during a five-set quarter-final loss to Sam Querrey.

The 30-year-old from Britain revealed during a news conference at the U.S. Open site Saturday that the hip first bothered him during his semifinal loss to Stan Wawrinka at the French Open in June.

Murray said he will decide in the “next couple of days” whether to end his season because of the injury.

He has dealt with hip problems off and on for years, but not to the point where it forced him off the tour for an extended absence.

“I certainly wouldn’t have been hurting myself more by trying to play. It was more a question of whether it would settle down in time,” Murray said. “Obviously I kind of ran out of time.”

Murray’s exit from the U.S. Open further depletes an event that already was missing three of last year’s four men’s semifinalists, including 2016 champion Wawrinka, runner-up Novak Djokovic and Kei Nishikori.

That leaves No. 1 seed Nadal and No. 3 Roger Federer — who has been dealing with a bad back — as the two clear favourites. They were drawn Friday into the same half of the bracket, meaning they could only meet in the semifinals.

If Murray had pulled out of the field any time before the draw was conducted Thursday, Federer would have moved up to the No. 2 seeding and automatically would be in the bottom half of the bracket, setting up the possibility of a final between him and Nadal.