An impulsive late-night text message has created a crowd favorite Wimbledon: Andy Murray and Emma Raducanu on the same mixed doubles team.
“It was quite late last night when I sent the message,” Murray revealed on Wednesday, shortly after his final training session at Aorangi Park. “It would have been after 9pm so I was a bit worried she might have gone to bed. But I got a quick response. She said, ‘Yeah, let’s do it’. That was it.”
It was a striking move from Murray, who was forced to withdraw from the singles event on Tuesday after failing to fully recover from surgery on a spinal cyst just 10 days earlier.
He has previously played in the men’s doubles with brother Jamie. But the partnership with Raducanu offers Murray another chance to roll the dice as he seeks one last victory at Wimbledon, the tournament where he won the singles titles in 2013 and 2016.
“We had already talked about it a few years ago during the Covid year [in 2021] but apparently we both did really well in singles and that didn’t happen,” Murray explained.
“Yesterday I was chatting with my team and we were talking about mixed. Last night I messaged her coach [Nick Cavaday] and asked if he thought it was something she would want to do. “He said it was worth asking, so I did, and she said yes, she would want to do it.
“It must be fun. I played mixed doubles a few times when I was young and the last time was with Serena [Williams]. I really enjoyed it, it’s something we rarely do. And to get the chance to do it with Emma… well, it’s my last chance to do it, so it has to be good.”
Murray has already enjoyed a successful mixed doubles campaign on these courts, when he and Laura Robson teamed up to win the silver medal at the 2012 London Olympics.
Murray also competed in the 2019 Wimbledon mixed doubles event with Williams, with the famous duo winning their first two rounds before losing to Bruno Soares and Nicole Melichar.
Possible options are Raducandy or Maducanu.
He and Williams had different ideas about what collective name to use for their team, with Murray preferring SerAndy and Williams suggesting Murena.
In the case of this new partnership, the options could be Raducandy or Maducanu. Calling them the Randies could give the wrong idea.
As a former slam champion who won the 2021 US Open, Raducanu is a notable partner. Yet her doubles experience is virtually non-existent. She has played just one tour-level match, when she partnered Danish contemporary Clara Tauson at the Citi Open in Washington DC two years ago.
The duo lost quickly and surprisingly 6-4, 6-1 to Lucie Hradecka and Monica Niculescu, two very experienced doubles players.
It will be interesting to see how Raducanu handles the short volleys required for the mixed doubles format. While she is usually most comfortable playing from the baseline, Murray suggested she should be able to adapt.
“A lot of the skills from singles translate well into doubles,” said Murray, who played Raducanu in a mixed doubles match held at the National Tennis Centre during the pandemic year of 2020.
“There are a few things that are obviously a little bit different, especially when you’re playing against doubles players who have a lot of movement at the net. But she’s a brilliant returner and a great ball-striker, so I imagine she’ll handle the serves from the returners well.”
Murray and Raducanu have been given a wildcard into the mixed doubles and will face El Salvador’s Marcelo Arevalo and China’s Shuai Zhang in the opening round. The match is likely to be played on Friday or Saturday.
Asked if the pair would practice together beforehand, Murray said: “I don’t think so. We’ll warm up for the competition, but her priority will obviously be her singles training, and we’ll work around that.”
And what about the chemistry between the two? “I don’t know, hopefully good. She’s obviously incredibly competitive and loves playing in the big stadiums, so I expect her to handle that really well.
“I talked to my team about it a bit and they said, ‘What exactly do you want to get out of it?’ Firstly, we want to be competitive in the games. And then it would be nice to play with another Brit. She’s clearly one of the best British players and she would have been at the top of the list.”
Murray and his brother will face Australian pairs Rinky Hijikata and John Peers on Centre Court on Thursday.
Double act proves that Murray is a true ally of women
The news that Andy Murray will team up with Emma Raducanu in the mixed doubles at Wimbledon later this week was what every tennis fan has been waiting for.
Very rarely do athletes have the luxury of ending things on their own terms. After pulling out of the men’s singles draw earlier this week, joining the former US Open champion after all his injury battles could be the next best thing to Murray’s career, after his doubles match with brother Jamie.
It also feels quite symbolic. The term ‘male ally’ is used a lot in women’s sport, but Murray has been the perfect embodiment of an ally throughout his long and storied career.
A staunch defender of female athletes, he has tirelessly used his platform to advocate for women in sports, both in tennis and beyond. From hiring Amelie Mauresmo as his coach in 2014, when he proudly declared himself a feminist, to calling out everyday sexism in his sport (which claims to be one of the most gender-equal), he has been a true champion of women in sports. It’s part of the Andy Murray brand.
Nowhere has this been more true than at Wimbledon. Few will forget the time he rudely corrected a journalist after his quarter-final defeat to American Sam Querrey in 2017, when a male reporter lazily suggested that Querrey was the first American player to reach the semi-finals.
“Male player,” Murray countered. The reporter laughed it off, but Murray seemed unfazed. That same year, he also criticized sexist scheduling at the All England Club, when higher-ranking female players were relegated to lower courts, a theme that still plagues tennis.
His double act with Raducanu is reminiscent of his mixed doubles partnership with Serena Williams five years ago. If this is one of his final acts, it seems like the perfect parting gift.
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