By Chris Oddo | Friday January 11, 2019
Andy Murray has stunned the tennis world by announcing that he plans the retire—hopefully at Wimbledon but perhaps sooner.
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The three-time major champion, two-time Olympic Gold medalist and Davis Cup winner sat before a room full of journalists unable to speak, clearly emotional, before he walked out of the room briefly to gather himself, the weight of the world clearly on his shoulders.
When he returned and sat down again he said “I’ve been struggling for a long time. I’ve been in a lot of pain for, oh it’s been 20 months now—I’ve pretty much done everything that I could to try and get my hip feeling better and it hasn’t helped loads.
“I’m in a better place than I was six months ago and I’m still in a lot of pain.”
Murray says he has reached the point where he just can’t handle the pain that comes with playing and practicing. He says he can handle not being the same player, but the pain has effectively created a new reality and scraped his love for the game, twisting things in his mind as his body has struggled to respond to the surgery he had last year.
“I spoke to my team and I told them that I can’t keep doing this,” Murray said, struggling to push out the words and stopping for long periods to gather himself and start again. “I said to my team ‘look I think I can kind of get through this until Wimbledon, that’s where I would like to stop playing, but I’m also not certain I’m able to do that.”
He hung his head again, until a question came from the media.
Murray says he has an option to have another surgery, a more serious one which will allow him to have a better quality of life. He says he’s considering it, and added again that he’s not sure if he’ll be able to play again after the Australian Open.
Suddenly, this could be the last time we’ll see one of the greatest players of his generation on a tennis court.
Naturally the tennis world responded in shock and with praise for Murray on social media. He is revered not just as a talent, a tactical genius, a premier pugilist, but also an open-minded thinker who is quick to take up the cause of the less fortunate. He has long been known for his support of women’s tennis and frequently represents the women’s tour with boisterous support.
But the reality has set in. The sun is setting rapidly on Andy Murray’s days as a tennis champion, and as he seeks to quell the pain of a brutal 18 months, he looks ahead to relief—possibly another surgery and some more rehab so he can get closer to pain-free.
Murray says there are little things that are day-to-day that have become a struggle, like putting shoes and socks on, and he’d like to be free of those pains.
“I have a severely damaged right hip,” said Murray. “Having the operation was hopefully going to make it as good as possible, and it didn’t help with the pain at all and that is the thing that I’ve been struggling with like the walking and certain things on the court that I can’t do properly but the pain is the driving factor—because I can play with limitations, that’s not an issue—the pain is not allowing me to enjoy competing or training or any of the stuff that I love about tennis.”
Murray will face Roberto Bautista Agut in first-round action at the Australian Open on Monday.
Photo credit: Mark Peterson/Corleve