Andy Murray suffered his second defeat in the third match after his comeback, but is slowly returning to an appealing form. The two-time Wimbledon winner lost 4:6, 4:6 to his British compatriot Kyle Edmund (No. 2) in the round of 16 of the Eastbourne grass court tournament.
After 1:42 hours, Edmund turned his first match point and will meet Mikhail Kukushkin in the quarter-finals of the 721,085 Euro Wimbledon dress rehearsal on Thursday. The Kazakh defeated the sixth seeded David Ferrer (Spain) 6-2, 6-0.
Murray, who had defeated Stan Wawrinka (Switzerland) at the start of the duel between two former Grand Slam champions, lost his first service game on the Centre Court – and could not take advantage of four break chances immediately afterwards. Edmund continued to take the lead. With an ace, Australian Open semi-finalist Edmund took the first set, leading in the ATP ranking at position 18.
Exactly one year ago Murray was still in first place in the world rankings – after an almost twelve-month break due to a hip operation, the 31-year-old is currently on the best list.
In the second heat the Scotsman was trailing 2-5 after two more breaks, then fought his way back to 4-5, but still lost. Understandably, the lack of match practice was still clearly noticeable to him, especially at the key moments. Murray wants to announce by Thursday at the latest whether he will participate in the Wimbledon tournament (July 2 to 15).