Andy Murray pulls out of Novak Djokovic clash at Madrid Open through illness: Djokovic gets walkover

The last-minute withdrawal originated from his unexpected encounter with food poisoning before the match. The match was to take place on May 5, 2022, but now that it has been called off, Djokovic received a walkover into the quarter-finals.

Murray's withdrawal grants the Serb a free passage to the quarter-finals of the Madrid Open.

Tournament Director Feliciano Lopez disclosed to Sportsmail that he received a message yesterday from Andy the day before stating that he was not feeling well. He had food poisoning but seemed prepared to square off against world number one the following day. Unfortunately, he was not well enough to go to court. Both the players were excited about facing each other in Madrid, where they had competed against each other before.

However, an hour before the match was supposed to commence, the Madrid event announced on social media that Murray would miss the game due to an illness. Murray reportedly could not leave his hotel room on Wednesday after relishing his victory over Denis Shapovalov at 12.34 am. Now, he needs to decide whether he wants to stick to his original plan of competing in this weekend's qualifying event for the Italian Open in Rome. As of now, he does not have any plan to participate in the French Open despite being motivated by the history of his previous performances in the Spanish capital.

Murray's initial decision was to skip the tournament.

Murray initially accepted a wild card into the event after reversing his original decision to skip the clay-court swing due to concerns regarding his body and how it would fare on the clay. He defeated Grand Slam winner Dominic Thiem in the first round before bettering the efforts of world number 18 Denis Shapovalov in three sets to set up a third-round encounter with Djokovic. After the match was canceled, Dan Evans versus world number Andrey Rublev was transferred to the central court. The two-time Wimbledon champion's exit has made things easier for Novak Djokovic to advance to the quarter-finals, where he will face Hubert Hurkacz.