Virus rules out Murray

Andy Murray withdrew from the Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships on Thursday after coming down with a virus.

The British number one and world number four was due to meet France's Richard Gasquet in the quarter-finals but pulled out shortly before the match was scheduled to start.

Murray has also been suffering from an ankle injury which forced him out of last week's Open 13 event in Marseille and affected him in his first-round win over Sergiy Stakhovsky on Monday.

The Scot, who won the ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament in Rotterdam earlier this month, told Sky Sports News: "I've not been feeling particularly well since Australia.

"On Wednesday night after my match (against Arnaud Clement), I felt really bad.

"I had some antibiotics from the doctors, (which) didn't really help too much.

"I woke up sweating on Thursday morning and I went back to bed for another three hours from 12pm to 3pm. Nothing has worked so far."

Murray plans to return to his London base and will allow himself some relaxation time.

"I'm going to try to take a few days off," he added. "I'll probably go home on Friday. I just need to rest.

"I've obviously played a lot of tennis in the last few weeks and months. I hope I'm going to feel better in the next week or so."