Former world number 1 Andy Murray will end his career after the Paris Olympics 2024 – Libération

2024-07-23 10:36:21

A two-time Olympic champion, the 37-year-old Scot announced on Tuesday July 23 that he will retire from the sport at the end of the Olympic Games.

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This time it is over. In January 2019, contrite with pain from a stubborn hip, Andy Murray – Three Grand Slam titles in his Scottish bag – burst into tears in front of the press, at the thought of living these last moments as a professional tennis player. The solidarity from the world of the little yellow ball shows the respect of his opponents for the player, and for the man. The double Olympic champion (London 2012 and Rio 2016) finally stopped, and with the help of a metal prosthesis, he returned to the top level of world tennis for a few more years.

Time has passed. At 37, “Sir” Andy Murray – of the prince and now King Charles in May 2019 – underwent surgery for a spinal cyst in June, forcing him to withdraw from the Wimbledon tournament, which he won in 2013 and 2016. This Wednesday, July 23, he posted a very rude message on X: “I arrived in Paris for my last tennis tournament. The weeks playing for Great Britain are some of the most memorable of my career and I am delighted to be able to do it one last time. So he indirectly announced the approaching end of his career, at the end of his fifth Olympic Games.

Undisputed the best British player since Fred Perry (winner of Wimbledon in 1936), his last match on the ATP circuit will be an elimination in the first round of the Wimbledon double tournament at the beginning of July, alongside his brother Jamie.

Arrived in Paris for my last ever tennis tournament @Olympics
Competing for 🇬🇧 has been the most memorable weeks of my career and I am very proud to do it one last time! pic.twitter.com/keqnpvSEE1

– Andy Murray (@andy_murray) July 23, 2024

Former “Big Four”.

Andy Murray died, at least for a few weeks, the only tennis player in history to have won two Olympic men’s singles titles. Only two players can match this feat this summer: Spaniard Rafael Nadal and German Alexander Zverev, winners in Beijing in 2008 and in Tokyo in 2021. Unless the Scot manages to win a third gold medal, under the noses of the likes of Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic. For this edition of Paris, Murray entered singles and doubles on the clay court of the Roland-Garros stadium, where the matches of the Games tennis tournament will take place.

Nadal and Djokovic, two players with whom he shared the top of the ATP ranking for many years, together with the legend Roger Federer the “Big Four”, a quartet that shared the world number one spot February 2004 to February 2022. World number one from November 2016 to August 2017 for forty-one weeks, Murray was left behind by three rivals, who formed a hegemonic “Big Three” and compiled all the records in the history of tennis.