ANDY MURRAY will return to UK grass next Monday – as an interim stadium is named in his honour.
Next week Queen’s Club in south-west London will host its first WTA event for 52 years and this will lead straight into the annual ATP men’s tournament.
A temporary fans’ seating area, which is currently being erected on the Barons Court site, will be named the ‘Andy Murray Arena’ in honour of the British sporting icon, a two-time Wimbledon champion.
“Andy is the greatest tennis player ever to come from this country and a giant of British sport,” LTA chief executive Scott Lloyd said in a statement.
“We are proud to name the arena at our tournament at the Queen’s Club after him.”
Murray, who recently split from Novak Djokovic’s coaching group, will attend an unveiling ceremony on Monday.
This will be his first gig on the grass since the last Wimbledon Championships and since he retired.
The 38-year-old laid down his racquet following the Paris 2024 Olympics and had a farewell celebration on Wimbledon’s Centre Court last July.
The Scotsman won a record five Queen’s singles titles between 2009 and 2016.
And in 2019, five months after career-saving hip resurfacing surgery, he lifted the doubles titles with Feliciano Lopez.
Wimbledon are dispensing with line judges this month and will use Electronic Line Calling instead.
The system will also be in place at Queen’s for both the WTA and ATP weeks.
Unlike contemporary Roger Federer, who spent a lot of his early retirement away from the sport, Murray has remained a regular face at the sport’s main events.
Alongside coaching Djokovic at the Australian Open in his brief stint, the Scot joined Rafael Nadal for his retirement ceremony at the French Open last week side-by-side with the fellow “Big Four” crew.
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