Tennis: Tennis-Murray pulls out of Wimbledon singles, to play doubles

LONDON (Reuters) – Twice Wimbledon champion Andy Murray pulled out of the singles competition in what will be his final Wimbledon, the 37-year-old’s management team said on Tuesday.

He will play in the doubles with his brother Jamie.

Murray underwent surgery recently to remove a spinal cyst which was compressing his nerves and made him lose control and power in his right leg.

“Unfortunately, despite working incredibly hard on his recovery since his operation just over a week ago, Andy has taken the very difficult decision not to play the singles this year,” Murray’s team said.

“As you can imagine, he is extremely disappointed but has confirmed that he will be playing in the doubles with Jamie and looks forward to competing at Wimbledon for the last time.”

He was due to face Czech Tomas Machac in the singles on Tuesday.

Murray, who in 2013 ended a 77-year wait for a British men’s singles champion at Wimbledon and won the title again in 2016, had previously said he was unlikely to continue his career beyond this year and could bow out at the Olympics in Paris.

The tennis competition at the Olympics begins on July 27.

Following a victory over Alexei Popyrin at the Queen’s Club Championships in his 1,000th tour-level singles match, Murray withdraw due to the injury while trailing 4-1 in the first set of his second-round match against Jordan Thompson.

The issue was aggravated after Murray’s participation in the French Open last month, leaving the former world number one in a race to be fit for Wimbledon, where he has won two of his three Grand Slam titles.

Murray had revived his career after having hip-resurfacing surgery in 2019 but has struggled to make the latter stages of the leading tournaments and recently had to deal with an ankle injury sustained at the Miami Open in March.

(Reporting by Shrivathsa Sridhar in London, editing by Ed Osmond)