Andy Murray pulled out of the Artois Championships at London's Queen's Club after spraining his thumb in a fall.

Andy was due to face Andy Roddick in the quarter-finals of the tournament.

He said: "I hit a few balls this morning but I felt some pain and discomfort on my backhand and after the doctors did a scan, I decided not to risk playing. "There is plenty of great tennis to see in the tournament and I'm very sorry if people feel let down but I think it is the sensible thing to do. "I did not want to aggravate the injury and I am sure it will be absolutely fine for Wimbledon."


And here is the interview Andy gave today.

Q. Could you talk us through the kind of sequence of events from sort of last night, how you felt, then when you woke up this morning.

Yeah, basically I went home, took an antiinflammatory, felt okay over dinnertime. Then by the time I went to bed, it was pretty sore again. I woke up this morning, couldn't pick up, you know, my pillow. I was struggling to pick up my phone. You know, I obviously took another antiinflammatory. Came down here and tried to practice, hit some balls. You know, I could hit the ball decent, but I couldn't hit a backhand volley, and slicing was very sore. As soon as I miss hit a ball, I had my ligaments were kicking in to try to control the racquet head. You know, it was really sore. So I had a scan. I haven't pulled anything. I just sprained it a bit. You know, obviously it's not terrible, but it's just too sore to try and play a match. I've spoken to doctors, physios, the guys on my team, and decided this is the best decision for me.

Q. What's the advice about how long it will take to heal?


I don't think it's going to take too long. I mean, obviously the reason I was considering playing is because I was in a tournament. You know, if it was in a practice week, I would have taken for sure three, four days off. But I just have to take it day to day and see how the swelling goes down, you know, the bruising. Hopefully, three, four days' time, I'll be able to hit some balls again.

Q. Will this alter your plans at all for next week?

I mean, I hope not. I just need to see how it reacts each day. I mean, you know, I obviously want to get some good practice in, you know, over at the courts at Wimbledon and stuff. You know, yeah, I'll just take it day to day, see how it's feeling, make sure I don't do too much on it. It's one of those things where I need to get the swelling away as fast as possible because if not, you know, if I keep playing on it, it will obviously just sort of hang around and I won't be able to get rid of it. So just take a few days off.

Q. Was part of the decision the closeness of Wimbledon?

Well, I mean, I wasn't going to damage it, you know, any further by playing. I was just gonna, you know, prolong the time that it was going to be painful for. So, you know, if I played today, I still think, you know, I would have been okay to play Wimbledon. You know, there's no point going on the court feeling 50%, you know, not being able to hit a few of the shots. But, I mean, I'm obviously not pulling out just 'cause Wimbledon's around the corner with an injury like this. If it was a groin strain or whatever, then obviously you need to give that as much time as possible. I just didn't see any point in trying to play when you're so far away from a hundred percent fit.

Q. How are the other aches and pains from yesterday?

Yeah, they're fine. My neck's a little bit stiff. But everything's fine. I thought it was going to be worse than it was.

Q. What would you really want to have in terms of competitive output before a major championship? If you don't play another competitive match between now and then, do you think you're going to be fine for the start of The Championships? Do you feel the edge would still be there?

I mean, although obviously doubles is not the same, you know, I played so many matches in my life that it's not so much the match practice that's important, it's more sort of getting used to themovement, you know, and making sure you're feeling the ball okay on the surface. I played on grass a lot in the past and I played, you know, three competitive matches here. I'll play a match at the Boodles things next week, as well. You know, I'll try and get as much match practice in as possible, you know, next week, and I don't think it should be a problem for Wimbledon. It happens. A lot of guys take off, you know, don't play any tournaments before the Australian Open. Federer obviously didn't play anything before Wimbledon last year, you know. It's more getting yourself in the physical and mental shape rather than, you know, the match practice I think.

Q. Did the tournament doctor examine the hand?

Yeah. He'd seen it yesterday as well. I had the ultrasound scan. You know, it's more just a check and see if, you know, there's obviously anything broken, anything too drastic that you're just gonna make a big problem by playing on it. You know, there's nothing like that. So, you know, that's the one positive thing that I can take away from it: that it's going to clear up hopefully in a few days.

(source Andy Murray, photo/andymurray.com)

Andy Murray Interview