Andy Murray announces he will retire from tennis after the 2024 Paris Olympics

Andy Murray made an announcement on 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 retire from tennis after competing in the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.

Murray, 37, is Britain’s best tennis player of the last two decades, although he has been plagued by injuries for the last eight years. Murray was a junior circuit player who won the 2004 US Open, turned professional in 2005 and won his first ATP title in 2006. He became Britain’s No. 1 before the end of the year, made his first appearance in the ATP top ten in 2007 and played in his first Grand Slam final at the 2008 US Open.

This is when Murray entered his star age. He climbed all the way to No. 2 in the world rankings in 2009 and reached his first final at the Australian Open in 2010, a feat he would repeat four more times without taking home the trophy. He won the US Open in 2012, his first major title, and won his second at Wimbledon in 2013, becoming the first British man to win the singles title on British soil since 1936. He won again in 2016, the same year he also reached the finals of the Australian Open and French Open.

Murray eventually climbed to No. 1 in the ATP rankings for the first time in November 2016, where he remained until August 2017. But 2017 was also the year that injuries began to affect Murray’s performance. He struggled with back problems, but especially hip pain, which effectively ended his competitive career. In early 2019, he actively discussed retiring due to the pain he was experiencing.

Hip resurfacing surgery — an alternative to hip replacement surgery that involves placing metal pieces over parts of the hip bone — is what allowed Murray to live with far less pain and play for the past four years. He came out of retirement and while he was unable to recapture the form of his earlier career, he never, ever stopped trying.

Murray’s retirement after the Olympics is as perfect an ending as anyone could hope for. Despite years of pain and surgery, and the question of whether he would ever play again, he gets to end his career on his own terms, doing something that has brought him so much joy and success over the years: representing the United Kingdom at the Olympics. Murray has won two gold medals in the men’s singles, one on home soil at the 2012 London Olympics (where he also won silver in the mixed doubles), and the other at the 2016 Rio Games.