Tennis great Andy Murray has finally broken his silence on the controversial Wimbledon poster featuring some of the greatest rivalries in tennis. Murray labelled the tennis poster “a bit strange”, and surprisingly the behind is not his omission from the artwork. Last week, Murray’s family criticised the All-England Club for their latest poster which features some of the most memorable rivalries at the Wimbledon.
The reason behind the wrath of Murray’s family was that the poster didn’t feature the two-time champion. Murray’s brother Jamie, the former world number 1 slammed the poster and called it “a bit of slight” and “disrespectful”, whereas his uncle Nial Erskine called it “appalling at every level”.
Murray spoke at the Hurlingham Club on Wednesday addressing the huge reaction the poster sparked and said that his absence from the poster isn't an issue. Rather the three-time Grand Slam champion pointed out that female players were in the background and Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner garnered too much attention.
The 36-year-old jokingly said, “It was a disaster, wasn’t it?” Murray added, “I mean I don’t think the problem with the poster was me not being on it. You’ve seen it, I don’t need to elaborate any more on it. It’s pretty obvious if you’ve seen the poster. Me not being on it is certainly not a problem.” When Murray was asked about his response, especially about gender discrimination, he said, “Yes. I think that was what was slightly strange.”
Murray added, “I guess the players on the poster have obviously had incredible careers and have been unbelievably successful at Wimbledon, but elsewhere some of the greatest players of all time. For me, Alcaraz and Sinner are unbelievable players but it seems strange that [the others] were all behind them. I mean, I don’t know how big a deal it is, it’s a poster. I personally don’t really care that much about it. But I can see when you look at it, it does look a bit strange. But I really don’t care that much about it, I really don’t.”
On Tuesday, Murray’s final warm-up match ahead of Wimbledon ended with him losing to world number six Holger Rune 6-4, 6-4 at the Giorgio Armani Tennis Classic.
