Andy Murray joined an already extensive list of absentees from the upcoming U.S. Open when he announced his withdrawal on Saturday afternoon. Murray has not taken the court since Wimbledon due to a hip injury, but he showed up in New York hoping that his body would ultimately allow him to play.
As it turned out, it did not. His stay at Flushing Meadows consisted of nothing more than a few practices and one unfortunate press conference.
“[I] did pretty much everything that I could to get myself ready here and took a number of weeks off after Wimbledon,” the world No. 2 reflected. “I obviously spoke to a lot of hip specialists. [I] tried obviously resting, rehabbing, to try and get myself ready here. [I] was actually practicing okay the last few days, but it’s too sore for me to win the tournament and ultimately that’s what I was here to try and do. Unfortunately, I won’t be playing here this year.”
The question now is if Murray will play at all the rest of the year. He has a huge amount of points to defend in the fall following his memorable run to the 2016 year-end No. 1 ranking.
“Obviously I spoke to a number of specialists about it to get the best advice possible,” Murray added. “Obviously when you speak to a lot, there is different views and opinions on what the best thing to do is moving forward, and that’s a decision I’ll need to take now. I’ll definitely make a decision on that in the next few days. That’s something that I’ll sit down and decide with my team. But I’ll decide on that in the next couple of days, for sure.”
In the immediate future, the Scot’s exit shakes up the U.S. Open draw. Marin Cilic moves into Murray’s place at the bottom of the bracket, Sam Querrey slides into Cilic’s former spot, Kohlschreiber becomes the No. 33 seed to take Querrey’s position, and Lukas Lacko gains a lucky-loser entry and assumes Kohlschreiber’s place.
New first-round matchups are Cilic vs. Tennys Sandgren, Querrey vs. Gilles Simon, Kohlschreiber vs. Tim Smyczek, and Lacko vs. Benoit Paire. Roger Federer remains the No. 3 seed is still in a stacked top half of the draw with No. 1 seed Rafael Nadal.
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Didn’t see that coming. Wonder why he waited until after the draw. Cilic is happy, Querrey probably not, I’m happy Isner is not playing Kohlschreiber in the 3rd round.
How come Fed doesn’t get the #2 seed….and I really hope that Isner is NOT playing Kohl again….oh no!!!!
He isn’t now!! I noticed they might play too and I was like thank god kohl got that 33 seed when draw was changed. Huge opportunity in bottom half of draw for someone who isn’t Fedal to make the finals.
Was about to say the same , thank God not another Kohl-Isner!!
As I said, Murray should have stayed at home and rest…Cilic too…
Why did they not bump everyone up. Why was Fed still kept no 3. This is ridiculous .
…..because nobody wanted to get hurt by being bumped!lol You get bruised when you are bumped, right?Ha,Ha,Ha…
Yup, that is ridiculous, Sanju! Fed should be No.2 now. But, in my eyes, he is No.1!
Don’t let your eyes deceive you.
?
They aren’t deceiving him ?♂️
I hope nadal can bring that 2010 serve. If he does the rest of the field doesn’t matter.
I don’t think we are going to see that USO serve. At least Rafa has improved his second serve, which was such a liability. It’s become a real weapon for him. I think Rafa is going to need his whole game to be working well if he is to win. He needs that forehand to be accurate. He needs to have his backhand working. The ROS must improve. It all has to come together like it did earlier in the year on hard courts.
“Rest of the field doesn’t matter” lol good one
glad you liked it:-)
The 2010 USO Rafa was truly formidable, I mean not even Djoko with his ROS capabilities could manufacture much BP opportunities. Rafa OTOH could manufacture 20+ BP chances and took some of those to win the match in the end.
Rafa is not going to serve like that anymore, but, imo his serve at the FO this year is/was good enough, esp his second serves. I do hope Rafa is comfortable with the balls used at NY, and hope to see the serving prowess at the FO reappears in NY, and of course that aggressive Rafa too.