Andy Murray wants to form a champion mixed doubles alliance with Emma Raducanu at Wimbledon – but he admits their singles campaigns will take priority and could put a stop to the idea. Raducanu said this week that she would ‘love to play doubles with Andy Murray at Wimbledon’ – and the Scotsman is all for it.
Murray’s tunnel vision focuses on reaching the later stages of singles at Wimbledon, but he admits linking up with Raducanu in mixed doubles was discussed last year – and he would like that to happen one day. He revealed: “Last year we talked about it, but we both did well in singles.
“I would love to play with Emma at some point. I’m sure we’ll both focus on good singles runs, but yeah, I’d love to do that. Meanwhile, Murray insists he has “high expectations and ambitious goals” on the grass this year, and he wants to improve his world ranking enough to make the seeds when he returns to the Strawberry Fields of SW19 next month.
A double act featuring two-time Wimbledon champion and US Open queen Raducanu would be the ultimate crowd pleaser. But as he kicked off his grass-court season with a taste of the good life at the Surbiton Trophy, securing a 6-2 6-1 victory in 57 minutes over Austrian southpaw Jirij Rodionov with seconds to spare before the sky does not open, His Lordship of Dunblane seemed in good order.
He will need a good run, either at Stuttgart next week or at Queens Club in mid-June, to move up from 67th in the table and make the top seed at Wimbledon, avoiding a possible move to the hospital against Novak Djokovic or Rafael Nadal at the start. Sleeves.
On a blustery afternoon at the Surbiton Rackets and Fitness Club, he played with the urgency of a man in a hurry to get back into the top 30. He said: “I have high expectations of myself and ambitious goals for the coming weeks, which I discuss with my team regularly.
“I’m not going to share them now, but I’ve trained hard, I feel the grass is my best surface and I’ve prepared as best I can. I can’t control my results or performance at Wimbledon for the moment, but I can control my attitude on the pitch and I can guarantee that I will give 100% to have a good run.
Surbiton is best known, to older viewers, as the setting of the 70s sitcom The Good Life, where Richard Briers and Felicity Kendal quit the rat race and turned a four-bedroom detached house into a farmhouse suburban. Murray was never likely to turn the real surface here into a vegetable garden, nor let a goat called Geraldine graze on the outside courts.
But his game was in good working order, and the roughly 300 spectators – including Chelsea footballer Ruben Loftus-Cheek – appreciated that he took a short bite out of world number 127 Rodionov. Muzza, who previously posted a photo of himself dressed as a dragon to entertain his children on social media, also reserved fire for ATP Tour chiefs who took away ranking points at Wimbledon after the All England Club banned Russian players during the war in Ukraine. .
He said: “I don’t know how many matches I would have to win to be seeded at Wimbledon, but it would be nice – and nice. I guess if I had a good race next week, or at Queens, it would give me a chance, but who knows what the standings will be like? Wimbledon can do what they want now that the ATP have taken the points!
“I spoke to some of the Russian players in Madrid and I feel for them. I don’t think they are supportive of what is happening in Ukraine, but I understand that it is not so easy for them to talk about it publicly.
