Written by Staff Writer at CNN
Andy Murray must feel like a newlywed now that he’s finally found his wedding ring!
The British tennis star returned the diamond band to his wife during a rain delay in the Queen’s Club warm-up tournament for Wimbledon on Tuesday.
But it was not immediately clear what happened to it at the start of his match against David Goffin, before the powerful Belgian hit a forehand return of a backhand into the side of the court.
Murray rushed up to his wife Kim Sears, and as he did he quickly noticed a hole in the ring — prompting him to stop the match as he searched unsuccessfully for it.
But one thing he did find immediately was a tennis ball.
“I thought, ‘Look at that! It’s pretty far away!’” Murray told reporters afterwards.
“It was a huge relief actually that it wasn’t worse.”
A relieved Andy Murray hands the ring back to his wife Kim Sears. Credit: Tim Hales/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Though the Wimbledon champion apologized profusely for being late, he insisted his wife only wanted him to go back out on court to finish the match.
“She basically said to me, ‘Go back out, have a good try,’” he said. “I think she’s feeling good about it but you don’t want to let your wife down. There’s no worse feeling in the world than that.”
The ring was finally found in a pocket of the clothing Spencer is wearing in the match, and Murray had a safe space built to keep the ring until he returned to the locker room.
Although Murray played well and won the match — he scored a 6-3, 6-2 win over Goffin — he never got a chance to fetch his missing wedding band during the match, and shortly afterwards, posted on Instagram a photo of his shaken hand on an elastic band, explaining the situation with one simple word: “failed.”
The couple have two children together, and moved back to the U.K. last year, after Murray landed a place on the tennis team at the University of Miami.
He continued playing, and qualified for the U.S. Open that month, but Sears was by his side as he quit the match early to focus on family. The duo recently celebrated their second wedding anniversary in the Maldives.