Andy Murray learns Olympics tennis draw as Team GB star plots fairytale farewell | Tennis | Sport
Andy Murray and Dan Evans have learned they will face the Japanese pairing of Taro Daniel and Kei Nishikori in the men’s doubles draw at the Paris Olympics.
The tennis tournament at Roland Garros will be the last event Murray ever plays before he retires from the sport.
He has only entered the doubles alongside Evans after insisting his body would not hold up to the wear and tear of the singles, which will see the likes of Carlos Alcaraz, Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal duel it out on the clay for the gold medal.
The Team GB duo have been pitted agaisnt Daniel and Nishikori first up. Win that first match and the Belgian duo of Sander Gille and Joran Vliegen or French pairing of Arthur Fils and Ugo Humbert await.
Murray and Evans are not the only all-British duo in the men’s doubles draw. Neal Skupski, a three-time Wimbledon doubles winner in the men’s and mixed, partners with Joe Salisbury.
They are the fifth seeds and have been awarded the Czech duo of Tomas Machac and Adam Pavlasek, who Andy Murray‘s brother Jamie has previously played alongside, in their first-round match-up.
Elsewhere, the Spanish team of Rafael Nadal and Carlos Alcaraz was a big one to look out for. The duo, who have a combined 26 singles Grand Slams, are pitted against the eight-seeded Maximo Gonzalez and Andres Molteni from Argentina.
Stefanos Tsitsipas and his brother Petros are also in the draw. The Greek siblings will take on Portugal’s Nuno Borges and Francisco Cabral.
Salisbury will partner Heather Watson in the mixed doubles, where they face Canadian duo Gabriela Dabrowski and Felix Auger-Aliassime. There is also British representation in the women’s doubles draw, as Katie Boulter and Watson will join forces. They have drawn Germany’s Angelique Kerber and Laura Siegemund in the first round. Siegemund is the WTA world No. 5 in doubles.
Like Murray, Kerber will be retiring after this year’s Olympics. A silver medallist in singles at Rio 2016, Kerber announced the news ahead of the draw ceremony on Thursday.
Both Murray and Kerber attended the draw alone with Nadal, Stan Wawrinka and Elina Svitolina. Reflecting on his Olympic journey, Murray said: “Olympics has been obviously incredibly special for me, had some amazing memories on the court particularly in London, that whole Olympics, to win medals there was unbelievable.
“I’m really happy that I get to do this one more time, compete for my country and yeah, unfortunate that I trained all last few weeks to try and get myself ready to play singles and doubles but getting a bit older now becomes a bit harder to recover from the injuries and just ran out of time really. But happy to be in the doubles with Dan and we play well together so we can have a good run.”
