Andy Murray’s first Challenger match in many years will see him take on the unheralded 17-year-old Imran Sibille from France on Monday.
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Murray had earlier taken a decision to opt out of the 2019 US Open to get some more singles practice under his belt and his first pit-stop in that bid is the Rafa Nadal Open. And taking him on in the first round of that competition is Sibille, a trainee at the academy in Mallorca, who has earned just $150 in his career so far.
Having featured in two singles competitions this year since returning from his hip surgery, Murray wanted to wait out till he could decide on his US Open participation. However, he decided not to play at the US Open after the organisers were left with no option but to needing to decide on the wild-cards.
And in a bid to try and push his singles career forward, Murray also decided to forego featuring in the doubles draw at the final major of the year.
He said:
“I wasn’t here to think necessarily about trying to win the tournament, I just wanted to play competitive matches.”
“There are some good players here, guys around 100 in the world, so I’m hoping to get the opportunity to play against some of them and keep testing myself.”
Murray added:
“Any time you enter a competition, you want to try and do your best and have the goal at the end of trying to win but the most important thing for me is to trying to play matches just now.”
“That’s what I’m hoping for. If I can win at the end of the week that would obviously be nice but we’ll have to see.”
Murray also said he would like to understand how he felt after featuring in more than one singles match a week, after having played only that much in recent times.
The Murray match will begin at 6 pm BST (5 pm GMT) on Monday, August 26.
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