Andy Murray is always a big draw for many fans at the Wimbledon tennis championships, but the question might remain for some on if he'll be taking part in this year's tournament.
Injuries have dogged the former World No.1 which has meant he has not passed the third round of a Grand Slam tournament since 2017.
In fact Murray's appearance at Wimbledon last year was his first outing at SW19 in four years.
He did make it to the third round, defeating Nikoloz Basilashvili and qualifier Oscar Otte, but lost to Denis Shapovalov.
Even then Murray's entry to the tournament was as a wildcard, so will he be entering Wimbledon through that method or through having built up his ranking this time around.
Will Andy Murray play at Wimbledon this year?
In 2022 Murray has been playing at quite a few ATP events and has come out on top against several highly-ranked players, including Dominic Thiem and Shapovalov at the Madrid Open.
His most recent tournament was the Stuttgart Open in which he reached the final, beating World No.5 Stefanos Tsitsipas and Nick Kyrgios before losing to Matteo Berrettini in three sets.
Those promising results have seen him climb back into the world's top 50 ranking for the first time since 2018, at rank 47.
However, Murray struggled with an abdominal injury in the Stuttgart final which saw him miss out on the Queens tournament which is considered a warm-up event to Wimbledon.
He said: “The positives are I’ve been able to practise but there are certain shots I’ve not been able to practise, so that has obviously disrupted my preparations. The injury is healing but still not perfect.
“I’ve been practising for the past three or four days and have been practising well. But unfortunately in matches you can’t just not hit certain shots. In the next couple of days hopefully I’ll get the chance to test that and hopefully it will be fine.”
Murray practised with Stan Wawrinka at Wimbledon on Monday, while Emma Raducanu, who is battling to recover from a side strain in time, was also pictured training at the All England Club.
Murray was forced to miss the cinch Championships at Queen’s Club last week and is confident he is doing everything he can to be fit in time.
“I’m rehabbing every day and also avoiding doing anything that is irritable to the area that I injured.
“I’m still getting a lot of good work done but I need to make sure the injury’s fully healed before I start to put it in positions when it is vulnerable currently. I’m doing all of the things I’m sure you’d expect with physios, treatment, rehab and giving myself the best chance to be here on Monday.”
He added: “Going into Wimbledon last year I’d gone in with hardly any proper practice at all, hadn’t really played much in the build-up to it and the fact I got through a few matches was a great effort considering what I was able to do in the build-up.
“It wasn’t until literally the Thursday, Friday before Wimbledon started that I started to feel physically a little bit better, and then during the event physically I felt fine but my preparations were really poor.
“This year my preparations have been significantly better, I got a lot of good practice in and I got good matches in, but, obviously, with the injury, that has slowed some of that progress and some of those preparations and made it a little bit tricky this last week or so.
“I was in a good position against Berrettini as well before the issues so that for me is the biggest thing. I practised really well the last few months and worked on a lot of things with my team. I’m in a good place tennis wise. Physically I do feel good overall, I just unfortunately got this slight injury, which is frustrating.”
Meanwhile, Murray's draw remains up in the air, with the loss to Berrettini meaning that, although he is back inside the top 50, he will still be unseeded for the tournament.
His grass-court history is sure to make him a dangerous opponent but, asked if he felt he could challenge for the latter stages, Murray said: “I wouldn’t say that. I haven’t shown that in the last few years.
“My goal is just to try to get to the start-line in a good place physically and give myself the best chance to do well. I’m obviously going in unseeded as well, which makes things tricky, but getting through a few matches for me is positive right now.”
