Andy Murray has confirmed that he will retire from professional tennis after competing at the Olympic Games in Paris.
On Tuesday morning, Murray posted on X: “Arrived in Paris for my last ever tennis tournament. Competing for Great Britain have been by far the most memorable weeks of my career and I’m extremely proud to get to do it one final time!”
The Olympics have been one of the most successful tournaments of Murray’s career, with the Briton winning two consecutive singles gold medals in London 2012 and Rio 2016 as well as a mixed doubles silver medal in 2012 alongside Laura Robson. Paris will mark his fifth Olympic Games after playing his first Olympics in Beijing 2008.
Murray is scheduled to compete in singles and doubles alongside Dan Evans at the Olympics, which takes place on clay courts at Roland Garros. It is still unclear, though, if the 37-year-old will compete in singles after undergoing back surgery four weeks ago.
Over the past five years, despite fears that he would retire in 2019, Murray has continued to compete at the highest level following hip resurfacing surgery in 2019. Last summer, the former No 1 reached No 36 in the ATP rankings, his highest ranking since undergoing the surgery and competing with a metal hip.
Since the second half of last year, though, Murray has struggled badly with his results and his body. Just when his form finally seemed to be improving in March, he tore ligaments in his ankle in the third set of his third-round match at the Miami Open and was sidelined for seven weeks.
A day after winning his first ATP match following the injury, Murray was then forced to retire from his second-round match at Queen’s due to severe back pain and he subsequently underwent back surgery to remove a spinal cyst.
Murray remarkably returned to competition 12 days after the surgery in order to compete at Wimbledon for the last time alongside his brother, Jamie, in the men’s doubles, with the pair losing a tight first-round match to Australian pair Rinky Hijikata and John Peers. Murray then received an emotional ceremony after the match. He had also been scheduled to compete with Emma Raducanu in mixed doubles, but she withdrew before the first round as a precaution ahead of her last-16 singles match.
Throughout this summer, Murray has said that he intended to retire at the Olympics but he wanted to be certain that he would also compete in the doubles draw, where he has a better chance of making a deep run. His back surgery then led to further uncertainty about his retirement plans as he was not sure if he would recover in time for Wimbledon, let alone the Olympics.
Murray said he had no intention of competing at the US Open and his family has a holiday booked after the Olympics. “If I’m able to play at Wimbledon and if I’m able to play at the Olympics, that’s most likely going to be it,” Murray said on the eve of Wimbledon.
After arriving in Paris with Great Britain’s Olympic tennis team from London via Eurostar on Monday, Murray trained with Evans on Court Philippe-Chatrier before moving to an outside court for an intense doubles training session alongside Evans against Joe Salisbury and Neal Skupski, Britain’s top-ranked doubles team.
With an additional two weeks of rehab and recovery, Murray looked considerably more mobile and comfortable on-court than at Wimbledon. He will learn of his opponents in his final tournament following the tennis draw ceremony on Thursday morning. – Guardian
