Andy Murray has announced his withdrawal from Wimbledon on the eve of the tournament.

The two-time champion had been due to play Benoit Paire in the first round on Tuesday and spoke positively about his prospects at a press conference on Saturday, but he has decided best-of-five-set tennis is too demanding at this stage of his comeback from hip surgery.

Murray said in a statement: "It's with regret I'm withdrawing from Wimbledon. I've made significant progress in practice and matches over the last 10 days but, after lengthy discussions with my team and with a heavy heart, we've decided that playing best-of-five-set matches might be a bit too soon in the recovery process.

"We did everything we could to try to be ready in time. I will start practising on the hard courts from tomorrow and continuing with my rehab and recovery and I'm looking forward to the US hard-court season.

"Thanks for all the messages of support and I'm excited to finally be back playing after so long out."

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.