British star Andy Murray confirms retirement after Olympics

Briton Andy Murray, the first male tennis player to claim two Olympic singles gold medals, said on Tuesday that he will play the final event of his glittering career at the Paris Games before heading into retirement.

Murray, widely regarded as one of Britain’s all-time great sportsmen, won gold in London 2012 beating Roger Federer in the final and successfully defended his title in Rio four years later defeating Juan Martin del Potro.

The 37-year-old, who in 2013 ended a 77-year wait for a British men’s singles champion at Wimbledon and won the trophy again in 2016, had previously said that he was unlikely to continue his career beyond this year.

“Arrived in Paris for my last ever tennis tournament @Olympics,” Murray said on social media, alongside a picture of himself on the Rio podium.

“Competing for Britain has been by far the most memorable weeks of my career and I’m extremely proud to get to do it one final time.”

The injury-plagued Murray received a star-studded, emotional farewell earlier this month at Wimbledon, the venue where he won two of his three major titles, following a first-round doubles defeat partnering his brother Jamie.

The Scot, who had surgery on June 22 to remove a spinal cyst which was compressing his nerves and made him lose control and power in his right leg, decided he was not fit enough for the demands of singles competition at the All England Club.

Murray’s hopes of a final hurrah partnering fellow former U.S. Open champion Emma Raducanu in mixed doubles at Wimbledon were dashed when she withdrew due to a wrist issue.

The tennis competition at the Olympics begins on July 27 and Murray, who made his Olympic debut in Beijing 2008, will play in both singles and doubles alongside Dan Evans in his fifth and final Games.

Murray has a mixed doubles silver from the London Games, where he partnered Laura Robson.

The former world number one resurrected his career after having hip-resurfacing surgery in 2019 but has struggled to make the latter stages of leading tournaments since and endured an ankle injury earlier this season in Miami.

“I’m ready to finish playing,” Murray had said at Wimbledon. “I don’t want that to be the case. I would love to play forever.

“This year’s been tough with the ankle, then obviously the back surgery, the hip. I’m ready to finish because I can’t play to the level I would want to anymore.

“I know that it’s time now. I’m ready for that.”

Murray escaped the horrors of a primary school shooting massacre when he was just eight years old to become one of the world’s standout tennis champions in a modern era dominated by Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic.

Murray climbed to number one in the world, clinch three Grand Slam titles, two Olympic golds and amass a personal fortune of $65 million from his on-court career alone.

The straight-talking Murray was born in Glasgow in 1987 and raised in nearby Dunblane. The small, tightly-knit town made global headlines in March 1996.

A gunman ran amok in the local primary school where Murray, then just eight, and his older brother Jamie, were pupils. Sixteen of Murray’s schoolmates as well as a teacher died in the bloodshed.

Thomas Hamilton, who was known to the Murray family and had even previously shared a car with the brothers, then turned the gun on himself.

“Obviously, I had the thing that happened at Dunblane when I was around nine. I am sure for all the kids there it would be difficult for different reasons,” Murray told a documentary in 2019.

“The fact we knew the guy, we went to his kids club, he had been in our car, we had driven and dropped him off at train stations and things.”

Murray first picked up a tennis racquet when he was three. At 15, he moved to Barcelona to train rather than enter the traditionally cash-rich but often stifling environment of the established British coaching system. The first of his 46 titles came in San Jose in 2006.

A year earlier a wiry Murray had made his Grand Slam debut as an 18-year-old at Wimbledon.

He made the third round, beaten in five sets by former runner-up David Nalbandian.

In 2008, Murray made his first Slam final at the US Open in New York, sweeping aside Stan Wawrinka and Juan Martin del Potro before seeing off top-seeded Nadal in the semi-finals. It took Federer to stop him in the final.

Agencies