Just days after his ignominious exit from Wimbledon, the true reason for Andy Murray being knocked out of the men’s singles by Rafael Nadal has emerged.

Towards the end of Murray‘s encounter with Frenchman Richard Gasquet, Murray was caught on camera helping himself to refreshments during the changeover. Television pictures have revealed that he took out a can of spinach, which he immediately consumed before serving.

He then completed his victory, before revealing his muscles, in much the way that the 1970s cult phenomenon Popeye did after eating his favourite vegetable.

However, at two sets down against the Spaniard, Murray went only to find that the cupboard was bare of spinach. It is surely no coincidence that he went on to lose comprehensively.

A Wimbledon spokesman, sensing a national backlash, admitted that replenishing the spinach stocks had been overlooked. He went on to say that “food prices have been going sky high recently and there have been cutbacks on purchasing premium vegetables. Otherwise we may not make the same GBP25m profit that we made last year”.

(I did have 'separated at birth' pics to go with this story but I am regrettably too technologically challenged to be able to post them)