The Jerseyman had his eyes set on a career-best finish at a Grand Slam after storming through the opening round in south-west London, but an increasingly severe wrist injury proved fatal in his efforts against Maximo Gonzalez and Nicolas Jarry.
Clayton and Broady, who had two shots at break points, lost the opening two sets 7-6, 6-3 on Court 18, before the pair conceded with the score at 2-1 in their favour.
‘If it was any other tournament I wouldn’t even have stepped onto the court for the second round,’ Clayton explained. ‘But I obviously wanted to try, because it’s Wimbledon.
‘I’ve felt it for a couple of weeks now. In our first-round match [on Wednesday] it was pretty bad but we managed to get through, and on Thursday I had to stop practice after 20 minutes. I had Friday off and had scans and treatment through British Tennis physios … I did everything I could have to try and be fit to play but it wasn’t enough.
‘It’s not an ideal situation but things could be worse. We were in the second round of Wimbledon and we’ve been playing really good tennis, so the main focus is to get the wrist back to 100 per cent as quick as we can and get on the road again.’
He added: ‘We were playing well in the first set and had our game-plan down to a T. My backhand volley was painful so we were trying to get me on the forehand as much as possible, and it was working, but even if we had won the first set there was no way I was finishing the match. That was my aim before we went on court [to finish], but it was just getting progressively worse.’
Discussing how his 2018 campaign compared to his Wimbledon debut 12 months ago, the 24-year-old said: ‘It had a different feel to last year.
‘In 2017 we came in very new to this level, but this year I felt that I came in with Liam as a real contender. We weren’t the worst-ranked people in the draw and I think we could have gone on and done well.’
The Brits reached the last-32 courtesy of a straight-sets victory over Frances Tiafoe and Jackson Withrow in the opening round – matching Clayton’s finish alongside Jonny O’Mara in 2017, when they were beaten in the second round by top seeds Henri Kontinen and John Peers.
- Clayton is supported by Rathbones.
