Andy Murray and Pierre-Hugues Herbert dumped out Wimbledon by sixth seeds in Scot’s first match of the day
ANDY Murray’s dream of winning the men’s doubles title at Wimbledon is over.
Britain’s greatest tennis player has returned to Wimbledon just five months after career-saving surgery on his troublesome hip.
Yet sadly he was unable to prolong his comeback run further than the second round with French partner Pierre-Hugues Herbert after losing 6-7 6-4 6-2 6-3 to Croatians Nikola Mektic and Franko Skugor on No2 Court.
It was a sad way to end what he had hoped would be another glorious episode on the SW19 lawns.
But then perhaps, despite all the heroics he has produced over the years, it was probably just too great a task for one last superhuman effort.
It was a draining effort with the first set taking more than an hour to complete, including one 15-minute game in which giant Skugor was trying to hold his serve.
Sadly Hugues’s returning was not up to scratch, even though he is technically the doubles specialist of the partnership.
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The pivotal moments came in the third set when Murray was broken twice – and this gave the East European opponents the confidence to storm to victory.
Later this evening he will play with Serena Williams in the mixed doubles, likely to be on Centre Court or No.1 Court.
And we will see just how much physical effort has been taken out of the Scot – or whether he will end up departing two competitions here in the same day.