The British professional tennis player Andrew Barron Murray, popularly known as Andy Murray is set to resume his play after seven months. The two-time Olympic champion, Davis Cup winner and three-time Grand Slam tournament winner is ready to return to the court on 23rd June for the “Schroders Battle of the Brits” tournament. The “Schroders Battle of the Brits” is a six-day long tournament and is set to take place from 23rd to 28th of June.
The event is co-organized by Andy’s brother Jamie Murray. Jamie Robert Murray himself is a very competent tennis player and is a seven-time Grand Slam doubles winner and David Cup, winner. The tournament matches will be streaming on Amazon Prime Video in the UK. The tournament is an attempt to raise donations for Britain’s healthcare system. The tournament is aiming for at least 100,000 pounds of donations for the NHS Charities Together.
The tournament will take place indoors at the Lawn Tennis Association’s National Tennis Centre in Roehampton. After a week from the “Schroders Battle of the Brits” tournament, the LTA’s British Tour is also set to begin at the same venue. The format for the “Schroders Battle of the Brits” will be quite similar to the ATP Finals. In the light of the current coronavirus crisis, the tournament will have a few changes against the traditional tournaments.
Players most probably won’t change sides as the tournament is indoors and they will pick up their own balls. Linespeople will be missing as the tournament is going to use live Hawk-Eye line calls technology. During the tournament players, coaches and commentators will interact only through headsets. The players may be tested for coronavirus during the tournament, although this is not certain yet. Jamie Murray said that a lot of things hadn’t been finalized yet and the preparations were still in progress.
Prior to the actual tournament, a WhatsApp group has already been established by the players. Jamie Murray has revealed that all the players are looking forward to the tournament and have already started trash-talking on the WhatsApp group and elsewhere.
In these difficult times of a pandemic, when everybody is locked up inside their houses, the event-organizer, Jamie Murray sees the tournament as an opportunity to meet familiar people and friends, to come together and compete against each other in a cool tournament. He also added that although he was quite busy organizing the event, he was very happy and enjoying the process.
Top players like Andy Murray, Jamie Murray, Dan Evans, Kyle Edmund, and Cameron Norrie will be amongst the eight players in the tournament. There will be six doubles teams for the tournament.
The 33-year old tennis star Andy Murray has not played any matches since November last year (in the Davis Cup Final), as he suffered an injury that was diagnosed as a bone bruise on his pelvic bone. Although he was ruminating on a comeback in the ATP Tour in Miami in March, he could not realize it as professional tennis was shut down due to the pandemic.
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