WATCH: Andy Murray and Joe Salisbury enjoy a cheeky victory celebration at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics
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Andy Murray and Joe Salisbury
Andy Murray and Joe Salisbury have teamed up to represent their country, Great Britain in the men’s doubles tennis event at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Murray is making his 3rd Olympic appearance while Salisbury is making his debut.
Murray was hoping to defend the title of Olympic Champion in the singles event for the second time having won a gold medal in London 2012 and Rio 2016. However, Murray announced his withdrawal from the singles draw due to a right quad injury.
“I am really disappointed at having to withdraw, but the medical staff have advised me against playing in both events, so I have made the difficult decision to withdraw from the singles and focus on playing doubles” said the former world number 1.
Murray and Salisbury played their first match in the doubles event on Saturday and have got off to a great start. They have secured their place in the quarter-finals after cruising through the first two rounds. The pair celebrated their achievement in a cheeky manner at the end of the match which Murray retweeted on his twitter account.
Andy Murray and Joe Salisbury’s journey to the quarter finals
At the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in Japan, the British pair, Andy Murray and Joe Salisbury have made their way through to the quarter-finals in hopes to take the gold medal home.
In the first round itself, the duo faced one of the best doubles players in the competition. They were drawn against number 2 seed of the tournament, Pierre Hugues Herbert and Nicolas Mahut from France. However, Murray and Salisbury overcame this difficult feat in just 75 minutes to take the win in straight sets, 6-3. 6-2.
Murray and Salisbury’s first serve proved to be advantageous with a 73% first serve record compared to Herbert’s and Mahut’s 53%. Throughout the full match, the Frenchman did not get a single break point opportunity whereas, the winning duo earned 9 break points of which they were able to convert 3 to secure the win.
In the second round, they were up against Kevin Krawietz and Tim Puetz from Germany. This turned out to be a harder match than the first round with the match lasting 1 hour and 35 minutes and the second set going to a tiebreaker.
Murray and Salisbury broke twice in the first set and were looking to continue the same momentum going into the second set. However, despite having 4 break point opportunities, the pair were not able to be successful even once, the set went into a tiebreaker as the German’s were not able to break as well. Murray and Salisbury came back stronger in the tiebreaker and were able to seal the win in straight sets, 6-2, 7-6 (7-2). The duo will now face Marin Cilic and Ivan Dodig from Croatia in the quarter-finals.
BREAKING: Defending champion Andy Murray withdraws from singles competition at Tokyo Olympics 2020
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Ananya Agarwal
(107 Articles Published)