By Alberto Amalfi | Sunday, February 6, 2022
Andy Murray has swept clay season from his 2022 schedule.
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The former world No. 1 announced he will skip Roland Garros and the entire clay-court season in order to prepare for Wimbledon.
"I am not planning on playing through the clay, the past couple of years, the clay has made issues worse, I don't want to take that risk," said Murray, who has accepted a wild card into next week's ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament in Rotterdam.
World No. 102 Murray is four wins shy of his 700th career victory.
Murray, who won clay-court Masters 1000 championships at the 2015 Madrid and 2016 Rome, reached four consecutive Roland Garros semifinals from 2014-2017, including his 2016 Roland Garros runner-up result to Novak Djokovic.
The two-time Olympic gold-medal champion said he's not ruling out a red-clay return someday, but believes it's too risky to return to dirt this season.
"It's not that I wouldn't potentially play on clay in the future," Murray said. "Last year I almost missed Wimbledon and was close to not playing the grass season.
"I will still try to compete a bit during that period, I won't do nothing, that's my plan just now. I had a busy end of last year and the next couple of months. I won't take any risks and hopefully get a good build-up to the grass season."
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