Andy Murray will play the Wimbledon mixed doubles event with Emma Raducanu.
Murray, a two-time singles champion is not fit to play the singles and pulled out on Tuesday, but will play the men’s doubles with his brother Jamie, and he and Raducanu have been awarded a wild card into the mixed doubles event.
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No wild card for the mixed doubles event had been announced prior to the tournament, with Wednesday’s announcement seeing 37-year-old Murray increasing his Wimbledon schedule.
Murray is an Olympic silver medalist in mixed doubles — with Laura Robson in 2012 — and five years ago played the Wimbledon event with Serena Williams.
Raducanu won the 2021 US Open singles and is into the second round at this year’s Wimbledon, facing Belgium’s Elise Mertens on Court 1 on Wednesday afternoon.
The mixed doubles event begins on Friday, and Murray and Raducanu, who have not played together previously, will be a huge draw for home supporters as two hugely popular players and the country’s most recent Grand Slam champions.
It has not yet been confirmed yet whether Murray will play his men’s doubles match on Thursday or Friday. The mixed doubles first round is scheduled for Friday and Saturday, but there is more flexibility for the doubles events than the singles.
Discussing the new partnership, Murray told reporters on Wednesday after practicing with Jamie for their men’s doubles opener that: “We’d spoken about it a few years ago during the COVID year (2021), but obviously both were doing quite well in singles so it didn’t happen. And then yeah, yesterday I was chatting to my team.
“They were discussing mixed and then last night I messaged her coach and just said like, ‘Do you think this is something that maybe she’d be up for doing?’ He said it was worth asking. And I asked her and she said yeah she’d be up for it. And that was it.”
Raducanu has only played one professional doubles match in her career, but Murray said that the skills from singles are pretty transferable. He hopes they’ll get a chance to practice together but said it would depend on her singles schedule. He added that his fitness levels were good but “I just need the leg to be a bit stronger.”
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As for whether other partners were in consideration for the mixed doubles, Murray said: “I chatted a bit with my team about it and they said what exactly are you trying to get out of it.
Firstly we want to be competitive in the matches and then playing with another Brit was going to be something that would be nice and she’s obviously one of the top top British players and she would have been top of the list, yeah.”
(Jordan Pettitt/PA Images via Getty Images and Clive Brunskill/Getty Images)
