[Aileen]

Following on his R1 defeat to Richard Gasquet in Cincinnati, Murray has opted to confine himself to playing singles only for the rest of the season, although not at the USO, to which end he accepted a last-minute wild card to play at Winston-Salem, where his R1 opponent is 28 year old American #72 Tennys Sandgren, who he has never played before on the Tour, although he did train and practise with him some years ago in Miami when Sandgren was playing college tennis.

Sandgren, who had hip surgery himself early in 2014 which kept him out for six months, and who until 2017 played mainly on the Challenger Tour, also played his last match in Cincinnati where he lost in three sets to Ivo Karlovic in the qualifiers.

He has a 26-20 win-loss record in 2019, 8-10 on hard-courts.

His best result of the current season was winning the title in Auckland, where he defeated Cameron Norrie in the final, 6-4, 6-2.

Although this is Murray's first visit to this tournament, Sandgren played here last year, losing in the 2nd round 2-6, 6-7 to lucky loser Dominik Koepfer.

With play starting at 3 pm local time, 8 pm BST, the match is scheduled for 3rd on Center not before 7 pm local, midnight BST.  The weather is forecast to be hot and humid with a high of 34C (93F), dropping to 22C (71F) at night.  There could also be a thunderstorm in the evening.


PS: While it's obvious that this time will not be convenient for most of us in the UK, hopefully a replay will be available on Amazon Prime and Tennis TV, both of whom are covering the tournament.

Murray though will get a lot of local support from his fans in North Carolina. many of whom, according to a report on the ATP website, crowded his practice on Sunday with Russian Andrey Rublev, and with tickets still available no doubt purchases for today at least will have been made.

[ChrisMac]

Thank you Aileen for your interesting report. Good luck to our boy! 

[blueberryhill]

Thanks Aileen.
At least, if Tennys Trump should win, I wont be watching!

[marathonarthur]

WS is covered by Amazon Prime but Andy's match is not listed as yet.  I see it is due on at about midnight tonight. I am interested in watching live!

[Aileen]

I didn't know Sandgren had also had hip surgery a while ago. Sandgren's quite a good player and his first name is always interesting!

I didn't know about his hip surgery either until I read about it in his wikipedia.  He was called Tennys after his Swedish great-grandfather.  

WS is covered by Amazon Prime but Andy's match is not listed as yet.  I see it is due on at about midnight tonight. I am interested in watching live!

It is now MA.  Had to scroll right along to the very end of the matches to find it  though.  TennisTV are also showing it.

I see that most of us so far think he will come through this eventually!  He has always got better through a match and I expect that will be the case again in this coming match.

Well let's hope so anyway! 

[Apollo]

It’s summertime in the US and so it is humid in the South and on the East coasts but it will not so hot in the evening. So good luck Andy, stay focused, play hard, and get the win!!

[marathonarthur]

The Johnson/Moutet match did warm up before the rain came.

[marathonarthur]

Update at 11,10 BST   rain has stopped but no signs of anyone clearing the water off the court as yet.