Murray Loses in London Due to Sore Groin

Written by: Staff on 22nd November 2011

Murray Loses in London Due to Sore Groin |

Andy Murray’s Asian autumn of 2011 was one of achievement and joy but his European winter seems to be turning into a pain wracked experience. The world no.3 was forced to make a late withdrawal from the Swiss Indoors in Basel, admitted playing with pain at the recent BNP Paribas Masters in Paris and is now making the agonized decision whether or not to quit the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals because an injured groin.

Murray lost his opening match at the London event 6-4 7-5 to Spain’s fifth ranked David Ferrer and later revealed he strained the muscle in his left leg a few days after returning from Paris.

“I had a problem with my groin,” said the British number one. “I’ll decide on Tuesday whether or not I keep playing.It was something that happened in training and I’ve tried to play with the injury.”

Murray’s second match is scheduled for the afternoon slot tomorrow (Wednesday), against Tomas Berdych who beat him in the Paris quarter finals. “I have to see how it goes, sometimes you’ve got to do the right thing,” he stated. “I didn’t know exactly how it was going to feel on the court today. Technically I can wait until one minute before the match on Wednesday to decide but I’ll see how I feel tonight and tomorrow and decide.”

Murray admitted on Saturday he had been confronting a few niggles in his preparation but is well aware of ways he might continue in the tournament. “There’s stuff you do to try to help it,” he said. “You can ice it, wear compression shorts, have massage. I’ll do an ice bath. You can get like acupuncture, needles, and sometimes those things can help and make it feel better.”

The 24-year-old took more than an hour-and-a-half to emerge for his post-match media obligations and looked totally dejected as he delivered news of the injury.

“I haven’t been able to do too much training this week,” he said. “If it wasn’t this event or a Grand Slam, I wouldn’t have played.”

“I just felt it. I’ve never really had many strains. It’s more bony, jointy things that I’ve had, especially playing on hard courts. It was the first time I’d really felt anything go.”

Serbia’s Janko Tipsarevic stands by to take Murray’s place against Berdych as first alternate.

“DAILY TENNIS NEWS WIRE”

Topics: Andy Murray