Judy Murray shares anger in Emma Raducanu follow-up tweet after taking drastic action

Judy Murray has claimed she was being sarcastic when she appeared to criticise Emma Raducanu’s Wimbledon mixed doubles withdrawal as ‘astonishing’. Raducanu was due to join Andy Murray for his SW19 farewell but pulled out on Saturday morning.

Murray’s mixed doubles campaign with Raducanu would have been his final set of matches at Wimbledon before his retirement. Instead, his doubles alongside brother Jamie Murray on Thursday is set to go down as his swansong.

Raducanu withdrew after feeling “stiffness” in her wrist after waking up on Saturday. The 21-year-old is into the fourth round of the women’s singles and could reach the Wimbledon quarter-final for the first time in her career.

But after tennis presenter Marcus Buckland wrote that Raducanu’s move was ‘astonishing’, Murray’s mum Judy replied: “Yes, astonishing.”

The words were interpreted as criticism of Raducanu’s decision and Murray subsequently locked her X account so only people who followed her could see her posts. She has now insisted that the post was sarcasm.

Murray wrote: “Not sure anyone understands sarcasm these days.

Pretty sure the scheduling (4th match court 1 with a singles following day) will have played a major part in any decision making.”

Murray has since made her X account public again, so that people who do not follow her can still see her tweets when they navigate to her profile. The post that seemed to label Raducanu’s withdrawal ‘astonishing’ remains on her account.

Later on Saturday, she shared to her Instagram story a quote from Serena Williams about playing mixed doubles with Murray several years ago – a move that was also interpreted as a dig at Raducanu. The quote read: “Playing mixed doubles by your side was one of the highlights of my life. I’m so grateful I had that experience.”