What Andy Murray's Loss to Stan Wawrinka Means for Wimbledon 2017

Andy Murray's dream of winning his first French Open is over for another year.

Murray was eliminated Friday in an epic 6-7 (6), 6-3, 7-5, 7-6 (3), 6-1 defeat to Stanislas Wawrinka—an exit that will continue his trend of falling short at Roland Garros.

A 2016 finalist at the clay-court Grand Slam, Murray had reached at least the semifinals in France each of the last three years. Once by far his worst major, he worked his way into becoming nearly as complete on the clay court as he is on hard courts.

"Obviously last year was a better season on clay but I feel like that started in 2015," Murray told the ATP World Tour's official website. "I just feel way more comfortable moving on it now...I spent lots of time on it in 2014, 2015."

Murray, who made the final in three of 2016's four slams, is already 0-for-2 in 2017. He was surprisingly taken out in the round of 16 at the Australian Open, which snapped a streak of seven straight years with at least a quarterfinals berth—he'd made the final in five of the last seven years.

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An elbow injury led to a rough start to 2017, though he was rounding into shape as the French approached.

"Confidence is everything. You have to pick yourself up from where you left off, and if you lost the last match, that's not easy." Annabel Croft told Sky Sports of Murray. "I think that was a great attitude to have going into the clay-court season because for the last few seasons he's made so much progress on the clay and he's learned so much.

"He has become such a force on clay so I think it's been very difficult for Andy to adjust with everything going on and injury problems are a bit of a nightmare because they put a spanner in the works."

It's hard to say what any of this means for Murray heading into Wimbledon. Clay and grass are two vastly different surfaces. Murray has won two of his three career Grand Slams at Wimbledon, including last year. He has made the semifinals or better in seven of the last eight years. If we're throwing money down, then odds are Murray will be making it to at least the final four.

We can even look at past results to show there is almost no correlation between Murray's performance at the French Open and Wimbledon. In 2010, he was eliminated in the fourth round at Roland Garros and made the Wimbledon semis. In 2014, he missed the French Open altogether and won Wimbledon.

These are different tournaments, and there is enough time that Murray can work out whatever kinks are in his game at the moment. Still, it's a disappointing step given his earlier-than-expected exit in Australia.