Nick Kyrgios may have been a huge Andy Murray admirer but admits that he wasn’t happy with how the Briton went out and noted that he would personally never do it the way the former world No. 1 did.
After confirming his retirement and having a minor back surgery, the 37-year-old only appeared in the men’s doubles event at Wimbledon and the same was the case at the Paris Olympics. For the former two-time Wimbledon champion, not being able to play singles one last time at The Championships was disappointing but an absolute disaster was avoided after he was at least able to play doubles and get some kind of a farewell.
But in the eyes of some tennis fans, the bigger issue was how the last couple of years of Murray’s went. After sustaining a serious hip injury in 2017 and undergoing two major surgeries, the Briton was never again the same player and he would often hear some suggesting that it was time for him to retire.
While Murray refused to listen to outside opinions and kept believing he could make another deep Grand Slam run or win another title, his last ATP triumph came in 2019 and at the Slam level, he didn’t make it past the third round not even once after the surgeries.
Kyrgios, who spoke numerous times in the past about his respect and admiration for Murray, suggests that the former three-time Grand Slam champion should have probably retired when his hip issues appeared and not put himself through what he did.
Before his career officially came to an end, the 37-year-old was 6-12 on the ATP Tour this year.
“I look at how Andy Murray’s doing it now, and how Rafael is going out, I don’t want to be like that either, I don’t want to be kind of crawling to the finish line in a sense. What Andy Murray’s achieved in this sport is second to basically no one… Unless you are Novak, Federer, or Nadal, like, the next person is Andy Murray. It’s like you’ve achieved everything. You deserve to go out, I think, a little bit more gracefully than he’s done. I think that the surgeries, the pain, it’s just not worth it, in my opinion,” the 2022 Wimbledon finalist said on The Louis Theroux podcast.
Andy Murray© YouTube screenshot
How Murray feels in his retirement?
Over the years, one of the Briton’s main arguments for continuing his career while things weren’t going well was that he simply loved the game and that it wasn’t about the results and money. And when the moment came for him to walk away from pro tennis, the 2013 and 2016 Wimbledon champion didn’t hide that he was unsure how his new life would look. But then, he was left positively surprised.
“I can dedicate time to my children and have free time to play golf or go to the gym on my own terms. It is really nice and I didn’t expect that. I was expecting to find retirement hard and be missing tennis a lot and wanting to get back on the tennis court on tour. So far it has been the complete opposite to what I was thinking,” Murray told BBC Sport in September.
Kyrgios is preparing for his own comeback
After having knee surgery in 2023 January and then surgically repairing his wrist last year, the Australian is expected to be back in action at the start of the 2024 season. But just a year ago, the 29-year-old thought his career was over because his wrist injury was as serious as it could be.
“The surgeon said I probably wouldn’t be able to play again. But I said whatever, just try and get me another two to three years of my career. Everything has gone semi-well and I will be playing the Australian Open this summer,” Kyrgios recently revealed during an event in Australia.
Before he was struck with brutal health luck, the Australian finished as runner-up at Wimbledon and was definitely one of the best players on the Tour in 2022.
“I am coming back because something is keeping me around the game. I have beaten pretty much every person that has been put in front of me, made a final of a Grand Slam, won a doubles title in a Grand Slam, won multiple titles and made money. But I think the one thing that is now on my target is a Grand Slam. I think that will be the only thing that will shut people up at the end of the day. That’ll be my deep motivation,” he recently told Code Sports.
Considering what Kyrgios had to say about Murray, he probably won’t hesitate to retire if his comeback doesn’t go well or expected.
