Murray allays Wimbledon fears

Updated 15.23 Sat Jun 14 2008
Keywords: karlovic, djokovic, roddick, nalbandian, nadal, murray, tennis, club, queen's, queens, stella, artois

Andy Murray has played down fears a thumb injury could keep him out of Wimbledon.

The British number one withdrew from his Artois Championships quarter-final against Andy Roddick at Queens on Friday after spraining his right thumb.

"Hopefully in three or four days' time, I'll be able to hit some balls again" - Andy Murray

He suffered the injury during his third-round victory over Latvia's Ernests Gulbis on Thursday and, with Wimbledon around the corner, chose not to risk making matters worse.

Murray said: "I could hit the ball decent but I couldn't hit a backhand volley and slicing was very sore.

"I had a scan and I haven't pulled anything, just sprained it a bit. It's obviously not terrible but it's just too sore to try and play a match.

"Hopefully in three or four days' time, I'll be able to hit some balls again."

He added: "I wasn't going to damage it any further by playing, I was just going to prolong the time that it was going to be painful for. If I played today I still think I would have been okay to play Wimbledon.

"There's no point going on the court feeling 50 per cent, not being able to hit a few of the shots."

Murray, who missed Wimbledon last year with a wrist injury, left the field clear for the top four seeds - Roddick, Rafael Nadal, David Nalbandian and Novak Djokovic - to contest the semi-finals for the first time since 1990.

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