Andy Murray unhappy with Wimbledon's new mixed doubles schedule

Former World no. 1 Andy Murray took to his official Twitter handle on Thursday to express his thoughts on the latest schedule released by Wimbledon for its 2022 tournament. Murray expressed displeasure over the All England Club’s decision of moving the Wimbledon mixed doubles final to an earlier date, which according to Murray would lead to a decrease in top doubles players signing up for the event. As per the new schedule, the mixed doubles event will be reduced to a 32-team draw, and the final, which earlier used to be the last match of the tournament, will now move to Thursday.

In the series of tweets, while explaining his thoughts on shifting the mixed doubles final to an earlier date, Murray said that even though he agreed with changes made to the mixed doubles event in order to make it a smaller draw, he disagreed with the decision of moving the final to an earlier date. Citing the smaller draw, Murray added that if the sign-in for the mixed doubles was done on Friday afternoon and finished on Saturday or Sunday, then it would have encouraged more top-class players to play in the event. He further explained in a second tweet that singles players who have lost earlier would be more inclined to play in the mixed doubles in that scenario.

Murray also said that looking at the current schedule, he thinks only top singles players who have lost their first-round matches might decide to play the mixed-doubles. In his last tweet, Murray said, “If you change that to Friday/Saturday sign in you increase that pool of players significantly. More top doubles players would play in this scenario too I think?”

Andy Murray's tweets-

As per the 2022 schedule released by Wimbledon, the Men’s and Women’s First round would begin on June 27, 2022. The mixed doubles final would be held on July 7, Thursday, whereas the Women’s and Men’s singles final would be held on July 9 and July 10 respectively. Meanwhile, the Men's doubles final would be held on July 9, and the Women's doubles final is scheduled to take place on July 10.

(Image: AP)