Image source, Getty Images
- Author, Jonathan Jurejko
- Role, BBC Sport journalist at Roland Garros
Jamie Murray says he wants to play doubles at Wimbledon alongside his younger brother Andy because it looks to be “now or never” for the pair.
The siblings have never played together at their home Grand Slam and have discussed teaming up this year.
Two-time singles champion Andy Murray, 37, is considering retirement and says he does not plan to play much beyond this summer.
“It would obviously be really cool to do it,” said 38-year-old Jamie.
“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.”
Jamie Murray has won two mixed doubles title at the All England Club and was a beaten finalist in the men’s doubles in 2015. Winning the men’s doubles title is his biggest career goal.
Andy Murray will be focusing on the singles at SW19 and may decide he is unable to play the doubles as well in what could be his farewell appearance.
In 2013, he became the first Briton to win the Wimbledon men’s singles title since Fred Perry in 1936.
“I asked [Andy] if he wanted to play and it’s not necessarily an easy decision for him to commit to playing the doubles,” added Jamie, who won the Australian Open and US Open men’s doubles titles in 2016.
“He knows obviously I want to play and do my best and play as long as we can.
“I guess he needs to figure out if it’s going to be worth it, or how much it might interfere with what he wants to do in the singles and how he’s feeling about his game and physically.”
On Sunday, Jamie Murray and New Zealander Michael Venus were knocked out of the French Open men’s doubles in the second round with defeat by French duo Gregoire Barrere and Lucas Pouille.
Murray and Venus, seeded 13th, squandered three set points in the second-set tie-break before Barrere and Pouille closed out a 6-4 7-6 (8-6) win.
Salisbury wins twice in a day to progress in French Open doubles
Image source, Getty Images
Elsewhere in Sunday’s doubles action at Roland Garros, Britain’s Joe Salisbury won twice in the same day to progress in both the men’s and mixed doubles.
The all-British pairing of Salisbury and Heather Watson eased through to the second round of the mixed doubles with a 6-2 6-4 win over French wildcards Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Fiona Ferro.
That came after Salisbury and American partner Rajeev Ram won 6-4 6-4 against Ecuador’s Gonzalo Escobar and Kazakhstan’s Aleksandr Nedovyesov earlier on Sunday to reach the men’s doubles third round.
Third seeds Salisbury and Ram have won four Grand Slam titles together but have never gone beyond the quarter-finals in Paris.
They will face Murray and Venus’ conquerors Barrere and Pouille next.
Salisbury and Watson – who needed just 61 minutes to record their opening win in the mixed – will play fellow Briton Neal Skupski and his American partner Desirae Krawczyk in the second round.
The fourth seeds cruised to a 7-5 6-1 win over Ecuador’s Escobar and Japan’s Shuko Aoyama.
Elsewhere, Henry Patten and Finnish partner Harri Heliovaara triumphed 6-3 7-5 against Luke Johnson and Tunisia’s Skander Mansouri in the men’s doubles.
But there was disappointment for Skupski and his German partner Andreas Mies as the 12th seeds lost 4-6 6-4 6-3 to China’s Zhang Zhizhen and Czech Tomas Machac.
In the women’s doubles, Maia Lumsden and China’s Wang Yafan lost 6-3 7-5 to 16th seeds Miyu Kato of Japan and Ukraine’s Nadiia Kichenok.