WIMBLEDON, England — Two-time Wimbledon champion Andy Murray still had not decided as of Thursday whether he will be able to compete at the grass-court Grand Slam tournament that begins next week and he is likelier to enter doubles than singles if he can play at all after recent surgery to remove a cyst on his spinal cord.
“Maybe it’s my ego getting in the way, but I feel that I deserve the opportunity to give it until the very last moment to make that decision,” said the 37-year-old Murray, who plans to retire in the coming months. “It’s complicated, and it’s made more complicated because I want to play at Wimbledon one more time … so I’m going to give it as long as I can to see how well I recover.”
Play at the All England Club begins Monday. The draw to determine the singles brackets is Friday.
“It has been mentioned to me: ‘Are you going to withdraw before the draw at 10 a.m. on Friday?’ And I’m like, ’Well, no, I’m not. I’m going to wait until the last minute,” said Murray, who could play doubles with his older brother, Jamie. “This is not clear-cut, where I am 100% going to be ready to play or there is a 0% chance that I can play. That is the situation. I would say it’s probably more likely that I’m not able to play singles right now.”
Murray had been intending to finish his career by playing at Wimbledon and then the Paris Olympics, where the tennis competition at Roland Garros starts July 27. But then came the latest in a series of health issues in 2024: He had to stop playing during the first set of a match last week at the Queen’s Club grass-court tournament in London because of pain and trouble walking due to nerve damage caused by the cyst, then had an operation on Saturday.
He returned to hitting tennis balls on Wednesday.
Murray wants the chance to give a proper on-court goodbye.
“Because of what I put into the sport over the last however many years, I would at least like to go out playing a proper match where I’m at least competitive - not what happened at Queen’s. So I can’t say for sure that if I wasn’t able to play at Wimbledon, and I didn’t recover in time to play at the Olympics, that I wouldn’t consider trying to play another tournament somewhere,” he said Thursday. “But if I’m able to play at Wimbledon and if I’m able to play at the Olympics, that’s most likely going to be it.”
And as of now, he does not plan to enter the U.S. Open, which begins in late August.
“I’m not going to play past this summer,” he said.
The Scot owns a total of three major championships: He won the U.S. Open in 2012, and Wimbledon in 2013 and 2016. His 2013 title made him the first British man to win the singles trophy at the All England Club in 77 years.
He also is the only player with two consecutive tennis gold medals in singles at the Olympics. He won at London in 2012 - when the sport’s Summer Games matches were held at the All England Club - and at Rio de Janeiro in 2016.
Murray underwent a pair of hip operations in 2018 and 2019. While he thought he would need to retire after the second surgery, in which he received a metal hip implant, Murray eventually returned to action.
He has since been hampered by various injuries, including tearing ligaments in his left ankle at the Miami Open in March. Murray lost in the first round of the French Open in May.
“I certainly couldn’t be preparing for Wimbledon in a worse way,” he said Thursday. “But maybe this is just how it was meant to happen for me.”
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AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis
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