Having played as well as he has all year for half an hour, it was likely that something would ruin Andy Murray’s 20th birthday bash. And so a wrist injury – no one is sure how bad it is – followed those to the hip, groin, ankle and back that have curtailed the Scot’s enjoyment of what could be a momentous period.

Murray will head home from Hamburg this morning to determine the severity of the damage to his right wrist that forced him to default from his first-round match against Filippo Volandri, of Italy – one he had dominated in every respect. What is certain is that he will not be performing at the French Open, which begins at Roland Garros on Sunday week. The grass is next.

Fated, fragile or just plain frustrating, those were the emotions rushing around the minds of those nearest to Murray and probably the player himself. He managed to look on the bright side later, but deep down he must wonder when this ill-luck with injury will run its course.

He became a top-ten player last month on a day he did not raise a racket and since then he has completed one match – his first-round defeat in the BNL d’Italia Masters in Rome by Gilles Simon, of France, last week – hobbled away after one set of a doubles with his brother, Jamie, in Monte Carlo using his chiropractor as a crutch and now this, perhaps the most bizarre, when he was playing, in his words, “awesome tennis.”

Murray won the first 12 points against the Italian who had ruined Roger Federer’s trip to Rome. There was nothing that Volandri could do to quell the opposition’s dominance until, on the first point of the seventh game, with Murray leading 5-1, the British No 1 said that he felt something give in his right wrist. On the next point he tried to hit a forehand drop shot and then fell to his haunches, gripping the wrist with his left hand.

The wrist was taped, he tested it with a couple more serves, but the pain returned. Brad Gilbert, his coach, did not seem amused by what he was witnessing and received a few choice words from his charge.

Murray was taken to a local hospital for a scan and will discover the results today, although he said that he fears tendon damage. “I’m not depressed,” he said. “I’m just having a bad run with injuries.

“I was hitting the ball so cleanly today and I showed myself that whatever some might think of my abilities on clay, I’ve improved an awful lot.”

And so Murray faces another practice period at the National Tennis Centre in Roehampton, southwest London, where those who run the LTA and have funded the signing of his coach, might be perturbed at his apparent reluctance to commit to the Davis Cup, a competition that does much to enhance the profile of a national association.

Wristy business at the top
Boris Becker At Wimbledon in 1996, playing Neville Godwin, of South Africa, on the old No 1 Court, the former champion stretched for a forehand, forcing his wrist to hyperextend. Withdrew from the tournament and missed the next three months.
Kim Clijsters First hurt wrist at Indian Wells in 2004, requiring the removal of a cyst later that year – it took the Belgian almost a year to recover completely. Returned to win Indian Wells, Miami and the US Open in 2005. Retired from tennis last week at 23 “not wanting to be hurt for ever”.
Xavier Malisse Reinjured his wrist in Memphis in February and the Belgian has not played since. He said: “I hit a backhand and snapped my wrist, it hurt pretty bad and the next shot was so painful, it was unbearable.”
Paradorn Srichaphan The Thai has been out of tennis with a wrist injury since retiring in the first round in Miami in March. He has slid to No 79 in the world rankings and hopes to return in time for the French Open.