Murray has consciously avoided specifying a time and place for his goodbye. Plainly, it is a moment he is frightened to contemplate
: PA/Zac Goodwin
It is just as well that Andy Murray has never formally anointed any tournament as his last. Quite apart from the fact that he treats questions about his retirement date with contempt, he knows that tennis, by its mercurial nature, militates against definitive endings. When he said in 2019 that his hip pain had become too much to bear, the haste to give him a fitting send-off left him on court watching a lachrymose video tribute after a first-round Australian Open defeat. Nine months later, with a resurfaced hip that some surgeons predicted would make him an occasional doubles player at best, he won his 46th ATP Tour title in Antwerp.
This year’s Wimbledon, though, has long felt like the logical end point. Torn ankle ligaments, a misbehaving back and a succession of unusually one-sided losses have all conspired to persuade him that this season should be his final act. And where better to stage the final curtain call than Centre Court, where, with that stunning triumph in 2013, he lifted one of the most stubborn curses in British sport. But at 37, with a body so battered that it deserves to be featured in The Lancet, Murray is finding that while the spirit is willing, the flesh is weak.
: AFP/Glyn Kirk
: PA/David Davies
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