British tennis star Andy Murray is preparing to play at Indian Wells in California for the first time since 2017, where he was granted a wildcard to compete.

But he ended up issuing a video appeal to his followers from his hotel room following the “terrible idea” to leave his damp and sweaty tennis shoes under his car to dry overnight, forgetting his wedding ring was tied to the shoelaces.

Murray, 34, explained he left the shoes underneath his car to dry out overnight so they wouldn’t “stink the room out” but they had vanished upon his return in the morning.

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It was only when his physio asked why he wasn’t wearing his wedding ring that he realised he had left it tied to his shoes.

“Last night after dinner I got back in the car to go back to the hotel and the car didn’t smell great,” Murray explained in an Instagram video.

“Basically, I’d left my tennis shoes in there. It’s been 39 degrees so my tennis shoes are pretty damp, sweaty. So I decided when I got back to the hotel that the shoes needed some air, I needed to dry them out a little bit.”

“I have no balcony in my room and I didn’t want to leave them in my room as it would stink the room out. So I thought I’m going to leave the shoes underneath the car, to get some air to them and dry them out overnight.”

Murray, who has been married to wife Kim since 2015, continued: “Anyway, when I got back to the car in the morning, the shoes were gone. So my tennis shoes for the tournament had been stolen, so I had to go to the local pro shop and buy different shoes, different brand, which isn’t the end of the world, but obviously not ideal.”

“But as I was preparing for my practice, my physio said to me: ‘Where’s your wedding ring?’”

“And I thought: ‘Oh no!’ I basically tie my wedding ring to my tennis shoes while I’m playing because I can’t play with it on my hand.”

“So, yeah…my wedding ring’s been stolen as well. Needless to say, I’m in the bad books at home, so I want to try to find it.”

The former world number one asked his fans to share his video message to “get to the bottom of it”.

Meanwhile, he shared another post with his shoe and the wedding ring tied to it, saying that it still stinks but he is back in the good books of his wife.