Andy Murray says ending his career at Wimbledon would be fitting – if that’s his plan, says John McEnroe, he should tell us so that we can give him a proper send-off
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WHERE WERE you at 5.24pm on Sunday 7 July 2013? If you’re British, the chances are you spent that minute with your heart pinned to a sun-scorched corner of south-west London. It’s highly likely that your knuckles were white with tension and you were holding your breath, because Andy Murray had his fourth Championship point over Novak Djokovic in the Wimbledon men’s singles final.
Seconds later Centre Court was torn apart by a roar like no other. Murray’s grip on his racket loosened and the weapon fell from his nerveless hand to the turf. As millions leapt to their feet, the Scot momentarily stumbled, unbalanced by the impact of a dream made real.
“Andy ended a 77-year drought since Fred Perry was the last home winner [in the men’s competition] in 1936,” says BBC commentator and three-time Wimbledon champion John McEnroe of Murray’s triumph. “You had the sense it was never going to happen. Andy did something that seemed unimaginable.”
Eleven years down the line, Murray is facing arguably the toughest challenge of all. Worn down by struggles with form and fitness since the complex hip surgery he underwent in 2019, the 37-year-old father of four has dreaded retirement.
But now it is very near. It seems overwhelmingly likely that 2024 will be his last Wimbledon.
“How can you fill the void Andy will leave?” asks McEnroe. “He’s one of the greatest competitors our sport has seen. That wasn’t something you associated with British players.
“After he won Wimbledon again in 2016 and finished that year as world number one, guess who he was ahead of? Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer. No other player did that during the era of the Big Three. It’s an amazing accomplishment.”
Murray has declared that finishing at Wimbledon or the Olympics “would be fitting”, adding, “In lots of careers, retirement is something you celebrate and people really look forward to – that’s not something I feel.” But his fading form this year tells its own story.
McEnroe himself retired in 1992 aged 33, but found the drug of competition so difcult to resist that he came back briefly in 2006 aged 47. Having closed out his 1992 retirement by capturing a doubles title in tandem with his brother Patrick, McEnroe is touched that Murray will pair with his own older brother Jamie at the All England Club for the first – and most likely the last – time.
“That’s very cool. Jamie is a former doubles world number one, winning the Wimbledon mixed doubles in 2007 and 2017, while Andy won silver in the mixed at th
