ATP: Early end of season: Andy Murray stops prematurely for 2018 after his trip to China

Andy Murray will end his season early after the upcoming ATP tournaments in China. The Scot wants to gain more time for the preparation for the coming 2019 season.

The 2018 season will not be remembered well by Andy Murray. After his hip injury, the Scot came back for the grass court season and only played a few games.

The ex-number one’s great fitness was little to see and the Scotsman stumbled with setbacks. After the upcoming trip to China, the 31-year-old is expected to end in 2018. “I’m here in China to compete in the tournament in Shenzhen and then in Beijing. After that, I declare my season on the tour over,” Murray announced on his Facebook page.

The reason for the premature end of the season is clear: the Scot wants to give himself even more time to prepare for 2019 and continue working on his fitness. The decision was made in Tema: “Together with my team, I decided that it will take me a longer time to prepare for the coming year in the best possible condition”.

After a fabulous year in 2016 and the first conquest of the world’s top, a hip injury followed by surgery set Murray back. In mid 2017, the Scotsman ended the season and stayed away from the tour for more than eleven months.

Since then Murray has only played nine matches and has won five of them. For the Grand Slam tournaments in Wimbledon and at the US Open Murray said no and fell back to rank 308 in the world rankings (as of calendar week 38).

However, “Sir Andy” is confident for the new season: “There have been many positive things in the past months and I have a hard and long training period ahead of me. I look forward to returning to next year’s major tournaments.”