Questions about Andy Murray’s current fitness are mounting after he missed his latest practice session at the All England Club.
The world No.1 recently withdrew from his exhibition match against Lucas Pouille at the Hurlingham Tennis Classic due to a sore hip. Murray has not publicly commented on the issue with his agent providing details to the media. On Wednesday, he reportedly booked a one-and-a-half hour training slot, but never attended according to two sources.
Murray also pulled out of a charity event on Tuesday night in aid of the Tim Henman’s charitable foundation, where he was set to conduct some light hitting. Instead, Murray was replaced by his coach Jamie Delgado. There were no full details provided about why Murray didn’t attend, but he apologised to Henman for his absence.
Murray’s setback comes after what has been a disappointing start to his grass season. Last week he crashed out in the first round of the Aegon Championships to lucky loser Jordan Thompson. It was the first time he lost his opening match in the tournament since 2012. As a consequence of the loss, the Brit will enter Wimbledon without reaching a final on the tour since Dubai in February.
At next week’s Wimbledon Championships Murray will be the top seed ahead of Novak Djokovic. He will be bidding to defend his title at SW19 after defeating Milos Raonic in last year’s final. Leading into the upcoming major, Murray revealed that every year he gets troubled by nerves going into the grass-court event.
“It is nerve-racking, I get very nervous and I feel the pressure before Wimbledon every year,” he told Sky Sports News.
“I think the first time I came back as defending champion it did feel a little bit different. I also wasn’t playing well when I came in that year and I had had the back surgery not so long beforehand, so I’m thinking I’ll deal with it a little bit better this year.”
In this year’s men’s draw, the top four seeds are Murray, Djokovic, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. Unlike other grand slams, seeds are worked out using a special calculation. The Wimbledon formula takes into account players’ performance on the grass over the past two years.
Top 16 seeds
1 Andy Murray (GB)
2 Novak Djokovic (Ser)
3 Roger Federer (Swi)
4 Rafael Nadal (Spa)
5 Stan Wawrinka (Swi)
6 Milos Raonic (Can)
7 Marin Cilic (Cro)
8 Dominic Thiem (Aut)
9 Kei Nishikori (Jpn)
10 Alexander Zverev (Ger)
11 Tomas Berdych (Cze)
12 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (Fra)
13 Grigor Dimitrov (Bul)
14 Lucas Pouille (Fra)
15 Gael Monfils (FRA)
16 Gilles Muller (Lux)
