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Tom Hamilton, Senior Writer
PARIS — Jamie Murray is hopeful of playing men’s doubles alongside his brother Andy at Wimbledon but said that any final decision will have to consider Andy’s singles bid at the championship.
Jamie Murray approached his brother to see whether the two could link up for Wimbledon this year, in what could be Andy’s last year on tour. Talking after Jamie Murray and Michael Venus’ second-round defeat to the French duo of Gregoire Barrere and Lucas Pouille in French Open doubles on Sunday, Jamie said the ball is now in Andy’s court as to whether they can make it work.
“I think it’s kind of up to [Andy] really,” Jamie Murray said. “I mean he’s obviously got a lot on his plate with … at that time of year and everything going on. So I think it’s more he needs to decide if he wants to do it because obviously playing the singles and five sets and you know he’ll want to do as well as he possibly can.
“I asked him if he wanted to play and I think, like I said, it’s not necessarily an easy decision for him to commit to playing the doubles. Also with me, he knows obviously I want to play and do my best and play as long as we can. So I think that’s never an easy decision for him and I guess he just needs to figure out if it’s going to be worth it for or how much it might interfere with what he wants to do and the singles and how he’s feeling about his game and physically obviously as well.
“I’ll speak to him the next couple of days, now he’s back home and see what he’s thinking.”
For Andy Murray, this could well be his final year on tour, having previously said he doesn’t plan to “play much past this summer.”
“It would obviously be really cool to do it,” Jamie Murray said. “I mean, it’s something that we probably wanted to do at some point in our career, and maybe now is the only opportunity to do it. So maybe it’s a case of now or never, but yeah, we’ll see. I mean, we need to figure out what’s going to happen first and then go from there.”
The pair have played alongside each other previously, the last outing coming in Washington in 2019. They have also partnered in three Olympic Games and helped Great Britain win the Davis Cup in 2015.
“Yeah, we’ve had some amazing experiences on the court together, particularly in Davis Cup and yeah, I think for us to be able to play at Wimbledon would be really cool,” Jamie said. “And from my point of view, hopefully it happens and we get a good crowd support.”