Andy Murray made an announcement Tuesday that everyone knew was coming, but no one wanted to hear. After a 19-year career that included three Grand Slam trophies and two Olympic gold medals, Murray confirmed that he will be retiring from tennis after he competes at the 2024 Olympics in Paris.
Arrived in Paris for my last ever tennis tournament @Olympics
Competing for 🇬🇧 have been by far the most memorable weeks of my career and I’m extremely proud to get do it one final time! pic.twitter.com/keqnpvSEE1— Andy Murray (@andy_murray) July 23, 2024
Murray, 37, is the greatest UK tennis player of at least the last two decades, though he’s been beset by injuries for much of the last eight years. A player on the junior circuit who won the junior US Open in 2004, Murray turned pro in 2005 and by 2006 had won his first ATP title. He became the British No. 1 before the end of the year, made his first appearance in the ATP top ten in 2007, and in 2008 he played in his first Grand Slam final at the US Open.
This is when Murray entered his star era. He rose all the way to No. 2 in the world in 2009 and made his first Australian Open final in 2010, something he’d go on to do another four times without managing to take home the trophy. He won the US Open in 2012, his first major title, and won his second in 2013 at Wimbledon, becoming the first British man to win the singles title on British soil since 1936. He won there again in 2016, the same year he also made the finals of the Australian Open and French Open.
Murray finally ascended to No. 1 in the ATP rankings for the first time in Nov. 2016, and he’d stay there until Aug. 2017. But 2017 is also when injuries started affecting Murray’s performance. He struggled with back issues but mainly hip pain, which effectively ended his competitive career. By early 2019 he was actively talking about retiring due to the pain he was experiencing.
Hip resurfacing surgery — an alternative to a hip replacement in which metal pieces are placed over parts of the hip bone — is what allowed Murray to live with far less pain and to play over the last four years. He pulled back from retirement, and while he wasn’t able to recapture the form from his earlier career, he never, ever stopped trying.
Murray retiring after the Olympics is as perfect an ending anyone could hope for. Despite years of pain and surgeries and wondering if he’d ever play again, he gets to end his career on his own terms, doing something that has brought him great joy and success over the years: representing the UK at the Olympics. Murray has won two gold medals in men’s singles, one on home soil at the 2012 London Olympics (where he also took home the silver in mixed doubles), and the other at the 2016 Games in Rio.
