London: Andy Murray has pulled out of his exhibition match at the Hurlingham Club on Friday, but the world No. 1 insists he will be fit to defend his title at Wimbledon, which starts on Monday.
“Sadly I won’t be ready to play at The Hurlingham tomorrow,” he said on Thursday. “My hip is still sore and I need to rest it today, and likely tomorrow.” His medical team have spotted “general soreness” rather than a specific fault line, and have prescribed “a few days rest”, which is far from ideal on the eve of a grand slam tournament.
He cancelled training on Thursday and is unlikely to get back on the court before Saturday.
Murray also withdrew from his first scheduled hit at Hurlingham on Tuesday, and was not able to take part in a charity event for Tim Henman at Roehampton on Wednesday.
While his team are keen to dampen down prospects that Murray will pull out of Wimbledon, he also took a couple of days off training in the week before Roland Garros, although he went on to reach the semi-finals, where he lost in five tough sets to Stan Wawrinka. His problem in Paris was a minor cold. This would seem to be more physically problematic. Murray normally takes time to adjust to the switch from the clay of Paris to the brief grass court swing ahead of Wimbledon, yet he did not look to be moving with his old sureness when he lost to the world No. 90 Jordan Thompson last week in the first round of Queen’s, where he has won five titles. That was a significant interruption to his preparation for Wimbledon but he said it would give him more quality training time with his coach, Ivan Lendl, who decided to stay on in Europe after the French Open rather than return briefly to Florida. Now that strategy has slowly been unstitched.
Such a disjointed lead-up will not help Murray’s chances at the championships, which will be the most open for a long time. John McEnroe remarked before Thursday’s announcement, “He’s one of the guys that is comfortable, knows how to play on grass, is tough to beat in majors. I think he’s going to be the second favourite [behind Roger Federer]. I think he’s going to be in a good shape to try to step up and try to reassert himself.”
Murray almost certainly will not be in the best condition to compete effectively over the fortnight, however, and must hope that the soreness in his hip passes as he progresses during the first week — assuming he does not have a first-round shock in store.
McEnroe’s brother, Patrick, in conversation with him on ESPN, thinks Murray still has an “excellent chance” of retaining his title, but had a more downbeat assessment of his physical state. “I think he’s had to push himself physically harder than those other guys, because those other guys, it comes to them,” Patrick said. “Obviously they’ve all worked incredibly hard. But playing tennis comes easier to those three guys, a little bit easier than it comes to Murray.
Again, this is all relative. Murray is better than 98 per cent of the rest of the field, 99 per cent. But he’s had to will himself, push himself so he can compete with these guys on a regular basis.” Murray’s work ethic has driven him to supreme fitness but it has also put enormous stress on his body. He admitted recently that he might have got the equation wrong in a rushed winter training camp in Miami with Lendl and has since dialled down on the intensity.
