Andy Murray practising as Rafael Nadal for virtual Madrid Open after being left off Tennis World Tour game

Murray competing in the virtual Madrid Open on Monday.
AFP via Getty Images

Andy Murray will make his return to competitive tennis on Monday – albeit a virtual one – in his opening match of the Madrid Open.

The three-time Grand Slam winner has not played on tour since suffering a pelvic injury at the Davis Cup towards the end of last year.

But the 32-year-old is lining up in the Madrid Open Virtual Pro with his opening match against France’s Benoit Paire.

Murray has been put in the same pool as Rafael Nadal, who was opening his virtual tournament against Canadian Denis Shapovalov today, with the top two qualifiers in each group going through to the subsequent quarter-finals.

Murray has been practising as Nadal online because his own character does not exist in the game Tennis World Tour.

Organisers are planning to donate €50,000 to Madrid Food Bank with prize money available, which players are being encouraged to donate to lower-ranked players on the tour.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in