ANDY’S D-DAY
Murray to make last-minute call on Wimbledon
ANDY MURRAY was due to leave it until just before this morning’s draw before confirming if he will play at Wimbledon this year. While there was no official word from the Murray camp following his defeat by Kyle Edmund on Wednesday, tournament officials reported his support staff were active yesterday in making arrangements to do pre-event media duties tomorrow afternoon.
Murray can wait until just before the 10am draw ceremony to pull out. By staying in the draw until beyond noon yesterday, the 31-year- old Scot qualifies for half the first- round prize money (£19,500), even if he opts not to play.
In theory he could wait to see who his prospective opponents are and then withdraw, although he has indicated he would not wish to do that, and end up being replaced by a ‘lucky loser’ from the qualifying event.
assuming he does decide to play at SW19, then he will be the most dangerous ‘floater’ among the male non-seeds, while many eyes will be on where Serena Williams — no 25 seed in the women’s event — ends up. The home singles representation of eight women and five men in this morning’s draw will not be boosted by anyone from qualifying after James Ward, lone survivor into the final preliminary round, was beaten 6-4, 6-2, 1-6, 6-0 by France’s Benjamin Bonzi. There were 15 GB entrants into qualifying and not one made it through. It is a further indication of the lack of depth in the British game, although most of the better homegrown players were given main-draw wildcards. In the quarter-finals of the nature Valley International at Eastbourne, Edmund could not follow up his Murray victory and was last night beaten 5-7, 6-3, 6-1 by Kazakh Mikhail Kukushkin, the world no 90. Earlier, Cam norrie was beaten 6-3, 6-4 by Slovakia’s Lukas Lacko.