Marathon schedule for Murray
Murray faces a crazy week after debut with Serena is postponed
ANDY MURRAY faces the prospect of an even more hectic second week at Wimbledon than expected after his mixed doubles debut alongside Serena Williams was postponed last night. Their much-anticipated appearance had to be put off after American teenage sensation Coco Gauff fought back from a set down to defeat Slovenia’s Polona Hercog in an epic match that finished after 8pm. With Williams already scheduled to play her thirdround singles tie today at 1pm and suddenly facing an unacceptably late night, the referee had no option but to remove the all-star duo from
the programme. It means that Murray will now play both men’s and mixed doubles today, with the latter being fitted into the schedule at some point once the singles matches are out of the way.
In the grander scheme of things, he could have to play a maximum 11 matches in nine days. With Sunday a compulsory day off, that might amount to considerable fixture congestion.
Since coming back at the Fever Tree Championships at Queen’s Club nearly three weeks ago, Murray has been introduced to the vagaries experienced every week by doubles players.
This involves being shunted around the programme and being at the mercy of what happens in singles, which always takes precedence. It happened several times at Queen’s, when most of his matches went on until the sun was going down mid-evening.
It is unlikely to have fuelled his appetite for a specialist career in doubles, with all the hanging around that comes with it.
He did at least get on court with Williams yesterday for a 50-minute hit in which they could have worked out basic strategies ahead of their first-round match against Germany’s Andreas Mies and Chile’s Alexa Guarachi.
Today he will be back at the All England Club for his double shift, which is expected to begin around 1pm on Court Two in the men’s doubles second round when he and Pierre-Hugues Herbert will take on Nikola Mektic and Franko Skugor, the No 6 seeds from Croatia.
There will be no meeting of the Murrays in the men’s doubles this year after Jamie’s partnership with Neal Skupski hit an early bump in the road.
The British duo were resuming their first-round match at two sets to one up after bad light forced them off on Thursday night. They had dominated that first portion of the contest but their experienced opponents Ivan Dodig and Filip Polasek played an hour of brutal and quite brilliant tennis on Court 18 yesterday to turn the match around, winning 3-6, 7-6, 3-6, 6-1, 6-4.
Jamie had more joy later in the day with his more established mixed doubles partner Bethanie MattekSands, coming from a break down in both sets to beat British pair Joe Salisbury and Katy Dunne 7-5, 7-6. He was due to meet Andy in the third round of the men’s but will have to go all the way to the mixed doubles final to have a chance of facing his brother.
‘Yeah, they came out firing,’ said 29-year-old Skupski. ‘We were unfortunate we had to come off last night for darkness. I thought we had the momentum.
‘It’s always difficult coming back, conditions are totally different, a lot warmer today rather than the evening yesterday, so the ball was flying through the air a lot quicker.’
Skupski struck a rather downbeat note and it sounds as if this fledgling partnership has not got off on the best foot. Murray ended his successful three-year alliance with Brazilian Bruno Soares after the French Open and took up with Skupski, who has spent the majority of his career with elder brother Ken. In three tournaments together, they are yet to go beyond the second round.
‘It’s been going alright,’ said Skupski. ‘But we’ve got a lot to learn, a lot of things to iron out. I think our game styles will match up pretty well. He’s more crafty, he’s a good volleyer and then with my returns, hard hitting from the back, good serve. We’re just going to have to keep going.’
Skupski admitted it was less than ideal that he played the tournament at Eastbourne with his brother rather than getting in a week of training with Murray before Wimbledon.
‘Jamie normally tries to play a practice week with his partner but obviously I couldn’t do that because I was playing Eastbourne with Ken,’ he said. ‘So I don’t know whether that would have helped to get us through this match.’
Skupski insisted he and Murray are ‘in it for the long haul’ together, but said: ‘Jamie’s top 10, I’m top 30 so we’ll need to see what happens but obviously we need to start putting results together.’
Later he added, albeit with a smile: ‘If it doesn’t work out with Jamie in the long run, then I am sure my brother will take me back. Hopefully!’