Andy Murray still undecided about Roland Garros as he laments ‘patchy’ display against Fabio Fognini

French Open
Andy Murray during a match

Andy Murray is yet to decider if he will play at the 2023 French Open as he acknowledged that his display against Fabio Fognini in the first round of the Italian Open was “pretty patchy”.

The Scot was knocked out of the ATP Masters 1000 event in Rome by Fognini on Wednesday evening after a three-set battle lasting nearly three hours.

Murray has failed to win a match at any of the three clay-court Masters 1000 events over the last month but won his first title since 2019 at the second-tier ATP Challenger Tour event in Aix-en-Provence in the south of France on Sunday.

Murray, who turns 36 this week, has only played at Roland Garros once since 2017 and must now decide whether to compete on the Parisian clay potentially for the last time – which could result in him accepting the wildcard to play in the Challenger BNP Paribas Primrose – or begin his preparations early for the grass-court season.

He told The Guardian: “I’d still like to play but we did agree that we’d talk and make a decision as a team after Rome.

“That is what I wanted, to see how my game felt, how I was playing and physically how I was doing in some of the longer matches before making a definitive call on it. We’ll have those discussions in the next few days.”

Murray and Fognini have been foes dating back to their junior days and it was the Italian who came out on top 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 after a tight battle.

“It was a pretty patchy match,” the three-time Grand Slam winner said. “There was some good stuff in there but also some pretty average stuff. He played very well in the third set. My level was okay in the third, but he played really well in the third.”

The result was a setback to Murray’s hopes of being seeded at Wimbledon, while he got into a row with chair umpire Mohamed Lahyani over a line call late in the first set.

Responding to an Instagram post about the incident, Murray hit out at the Rome fans, saying: “Stadium full of Italians booing and whistling, thinking I’m trying to cheat Fabio out of point all because Mo couldn’t read a mark properly. Cheers mate.”

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