Andy Murray to prioritise family before tennis, will leave Australian Open for wife’s labour
Andy Murray has made his priorities clear saying that he’d give up a chance to win the Australian Open title and be with his wife, Kim should the latter give a premature birth to their first-born in January 2016.
“I'd go home. For sure, yes,” Murray declared via The Daily Mail. “It’s obviously important. I want to make sure at the beginning I am there as much as I can be to try and help out, just be there for whatever is really required of me.”
The 2016 Australian Open, the first Grand Slam tournament of next year, is scheduled from Jan. 18 to 31 in Melbourne, Australia.
The current World No. 2 also admitted that training in Dubai in the Middle East rather than in Miami in the United States was a decision that was affected by his wife’s pregnancy saying that the proximity of Dubai to his home in the United Kingdom made him decide to practise in the Mid-East country.
Murray is currently one of the elite players in the sport owing to a great 2015 ATP season that saw his standings rise to the second spot, next to World No. 1 Novak Djokovic of Serbia. The 28-year-old Scot was ranked the sixth best in the world to start the 2015 season but has overtaken his rivals, particularly Switzerland’s Roger Federer and Stan Wawrinka, in the ATP rankings thanks to great results in the latter part of the season.
Murray won four ATP titles in 2015, at the ATP World Tour Masters Canada, ATP World Tour Masters Madrid, London Aegon Championships and the BMW Open in Germany, but has failed to notch a Grand Slam title. He made the final of the 2015 Australian Open, semifinals of the 2015 French Open and 2015 Wimbledon Championships and had an early exit at the 2015 US Open in the fourth round.
Murray’s decision to leave the Aussie Open early might affect his current rankings but that’s a sacrifice the Scot is willing to take if pushed to a decision of choosing between family and tennis.
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