The Australian Open could be his last tournament. Andy Murray, 31, suffers from incessant pain in the hip.
“It is possible that the Australian Open is my last tournament”, even if it is at Wimbledon that he would like to “stop playing”: Scottish Andy Murray announced, in tears, his very likely end of career for 2019, suffering from incessant hip pain .
At 31, the former world number one has come to the obvious.
“I can play with limitations. But having the limitations and the pain does not allow me to take pleasure in competition or training”
“I did just about everything I could to try to make my hip better and that did not help much,” Murray said in reference to his hip surgery in early 2018, moving it away from the courts to ‘in June.
He had then participated in only four other tournaments before finishing his season in September and focusing on his fitness.
“Wimbledon is where I’d like to stop playing, but I’m not sure I can do it,” said “Sir Andy”, which in 2013 became the first British winner of the English tournament in 77 years.
“I think it is possible that the Australian Open (14-27 January) is my last tournament,” he also slipped, fatalistic.
“Brutal period”
He faces Roberto Bautista at Melbourne Park next week. But without too many illusions:
“I will play. I can always play at a certain level, not at a level I’m happy to play. The pain is really too strong, playing like that is not something I want to continue”
And if he does not dismiss the idea of another operation with his recalcitrant hip, he thinks more about his quality of life as a retired snowshoe in hand, “it’s something that I envision now very seriously.
Eliminated in the second round of the tournament in Brisbane last week, the one who tumbled to 230th in the world has abandoned in a training match with Novak Djokovic Thursday after less than an hour of play.
He has already begun to pay tribute. “I take my hat off to Andy Murray! Absolute legend. In the short list of the best tacticians in history. Unrealistic results in a brutal period. Nothing but respect. I hope he can finish strong and healthy, “tweeted former American tennis player Andy Roddick.
He has won three Grand Slam tournaments (for five lost finals), 45 ATP tournaments and two Olympic gold medals. But becoming professional in 2005, Murray underwent the hegemony of the monsters Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, then the emergence of Djokovic.
Davis Cup 2015
For a long time he beat his greatest rivals only in minor tournaments, succumbing in Grand Slam against the same ones, paralyzed by the stakes. Recovering only crumbs or almost, which was finally not so bad given the level of play very “golden age of men’s tennis” reached by the Swiss, the Spaniard and the Serbian.
At home, Murray has long been an idol whose fans include some famous Scots, like Sean Connery and Alex Ferguson, who are often present at his matches. Elsewhere, on the contrary, the current has had a hard time passing.
He thus knew his lot of critics in Great Britain by positioning himself, by virtue of his Scottish identity and in a more or less unskillful way, against England. But was also able to reconcile with the British by winning single or almost victory in the Davis Cup in November 2015, the first in Britain since 1936.
Shy face to the press, his face still closed, the young player has often distilled a speech without fantasy. He was a little brightened with age and success, with a humour tinged with irony.
Until the tears of Melbourne announcing a near end of career, the thirty barely begun.
