Andy Murray pulls out of Wimbledon singles tournament after losing race to overcome back surgery

Andy Murray has pulled out of his singles match at Wimbledon today after failing to recover in time from surgery.

There has been a long will-he, won’t-he debate since withdrawing from Queen’s and then undergoing surgery to have a spinal cyst removed.

It has been a race against time to be fit for what he says will be his last appearance at Wimbledon before finally calling time on his illustrious career at the Paris Olympics.

Murray had been given until the last minute to make a decision over his participation by Wimbledon bosses. But he finally made the call on Tuesday morning and will no longer face Tomas Machac, instead vacating his spot for a lucky loser.

Wimbledon and Centre Court in particular have become synonymous with the 37-year-old’s career where he won Olympic gold at London 2012 and twice became Wimbledon champion – in 2013 and 2016.

Murray has been training each day since recovering from the keyhole surgery which left him with a wound in his back, still not full sensation in his right leg but no pain in his back.

He still practised at Aorangi Park for an hour on Tuesday afternoon and said afterwards: “It’s probably a few days too soon. But I worked extremely hard to at least give myself a chance to play. It was the right decision. I obviously practised with my brother today and I look forward to playing the doubles.”

In practice on Monday, he was hitting the ball well but occasionally struggled to get to shots from practice partner Kyle Edmund going far to his right.

Murray has made it clear that playing did not create a risk of doing any additional damage to his back, the only possible impact being the wound in his back reopening. But he has also adamant he did not want to play if there was the potential of a repeat of him pulling out mid-match as he did at the Cinch Championships at Queen’s.

A statement from the Murray camp said: “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. As you can imagine, he is extremely disappointed but has confirmed that he will be playing in the doubles with Jamie.”

The doubles format had always looked the more viable option for Murray Jr since undergoing the surgeon’s knife.

That leaves 11 Brits in action on day two of the championships. Yesterday, there were wins for Emma Raducanu, Sonay Kartal and Yuriko Miyazaki. But there were early exits for Heather Watson, Liam Broady, Arthur Fery and Charles Broom.

Murray aside, the other home players in action on day two are Katie Boulter, Jack Draper, Cameron Norrie, Dan Evans, Harriet Dart, Jacob Fearnley, Billy Harris, Fran Jones, Paul Jubb, Jan Choinski. Henry Searle.

The other big doubt fitness wise in the men’s singles draw has been seven-time world champion Novak Djokovic after he had surgery following a torn meniscus at the French Open.

Djokovic had said from the outset that he would only play at the All England Club if he felt he could win the tournament for a record eighth time.

He arrived at Wimbledon at the start of the week and has been practising every day since then. He begins his quest to go one better than last year – in which he lost an epic final in five sets to Carlos Alcaraz – against Vit Kopriva.