Andy Murray has decided to pull out of the Rome Masters and has cited “fatigue” as the reason for his withdrawal from the competition.

The British number one has been in scintillating form on the red dirt of late, after managing to win both the Munich Open and Madrid Masters in the space of a fortnight.

It has been a gruelling couple of weeks for the Scotsman and there were even some doubts that Murray would start the event in the Italian capital this week.

The two-time Grand Slam winner did feature in the second round of the competition, beating Jeremy Chardy 6-4 6-3 in a convincing performance on Wednesday.

However, having trained briefly on Thursday morning, Murray decided to pull out of his scheduled encounter with David Coffin, in which a win would have extended the Scots’ winning run on clay to 11 matches.

The 27-year-old, who is keen to be fresh and injury-free for the French Open later this month, did not feel it would be wise to continue in the Rome Masters and was content with playing it safe.

“I felt tired this morning,” Murray said. “I practiced 40 minutes and felt pretty exhausted.

“It didn’t make sense for me to keep going because when you feel like this it becomes a risk to play.”

Murray will take a brief break from the court before continuing his preparations for Roland Garros where he is 9.50 to claim the title.