Andy Murray’s Wimbledon Retirement or as Alix Ramsay says “A Muzza Tribute”

By Alix Ramsay

The big send off had been fabulous. The actual ending was, quite literally, a non-event.

Andy Murray’s Wimbledon career ended abruptly in Saturday afternoon when Emma Raducanu announced that she was withdrawing from the mixed doubles with a stiff wrist. She had stood Murray up in what was supposed to be his last match at the All England Club.

She didn’t seem too worried about her wrist when she arrived at the club, mind you. All smiles, stopping for selfies and photos with passers by, she seemed happy as a clam. But she was not going to play mixed, not even with a retiring legend, late in the day on No.1 Court, not when she had a fourth round singles match coming up on Sunday.

It does beg the question why she had even contemplated mixed doubles in the first place. When Murray texted her late one evening last week to ask if she would play with him, she replied instantly. But when it came to it, her singles came first.

In a few days, maybe Murray will think it is for the best. Having made the decision on Tuesday morning not to play singles (he had not recovered sufficiently from an operation to remove a cyst near his spinal cord just 10 days before), the grand farewell was pinned on the men’s doubles.

It was the prefect ending: Andy and Jamie playing together on Centre Court for the first – and, as it turned out – last time. Their family packed the players’ box. Poor Willie, the boys’ dad, looked on the verge of tears from the very first ball. Judy was there with Kim, Andy’s wife, and young Sophia and Edie – his two older daughters.

Rinky Hijikata and John Peers had put a bit of a dampener on proceedings by beating the Scots in straight sets but, as Andy pointed out later, even playing doubles had been hard work so soon after surgery.

Then came the send off: Sue Barker came back (she retired as the BBC’s Wimbledon anchor two years ago) to host the ceremony and it began with a show reel of Andy’s greatest triumphs and tributes from Messrs Federer, Djokovic and Nadal. It was just long enough to be a tear-jerker but not too long as to be maudlin. And all the while Andy waited in trepidation – he knew what was coming next.

Sure enough, Sue began her interview. Talk of triumphs past was fine but then when it came to discussing the long road back from hip surgery five years ago, he began to choke up. And when Sue told him that they were now going to “talk about your family”, he just groaned “oh no”. He knew he couldn’t get through that with out crying. He was right. Everyone was in tears.

Watched by a gaggle of his British Davis Cup team mates and a host of current and former players – Novak Djokovic, Iga Swiatek, Martina Navratilova, Laura Robson, Lleyton Hewitt, Holger Rune to name but a few – he was sobbing his final farewell to the tournament that had been so good to him and yet had also caused him such heartache (just cast your mind back to his defeat to Federer in 2012 final).

Now he just wanted it to feel right as he left.

“I think maybe [I’m looking for] a bit of closure,” he had said earlier in the week “Yeah, I just want the opportunity to play one more time out there hopefully on Centre Court, and I don’t know, feel that buzz.”

When it was finally over, he had what he wanted. “I don’t know, it feels like an ending to me,” he said of the ceremony. “Whether I deserve it or not, I don’t know. But they did a really, really good job.”

Of all the thousands of words that have been written about Murray over the years – and those many more thousands written in the last couple of weeks – none really picked out the one thing that Murray himself thinks he might be remembered for: perseverance. He never, ever gave up.

“I certainly didn’t get everything right during my career,” he admitted. “I was far from perfect.

“I think the thing that I did a really good job of during my career was that, regardless of the highs and lows, whether it was winning tournaments, having difficult losses, an operation, a setback, the next day I always came into work with the same dedication, work ethic, and passion, as I had the day before, regardless of the highs and lows that the sport kind of has thrown at me.

“I certainly didn’t always get it right. Like on the match days, I was not perfect by any stretch, but I did always come into work and put in a good day. I gave my best effort.

“Yeah, that’s what I’m proud of. So I guess, I don’t know, it’s for other people to decide what my legacy would be. That’s the thing I’m most proud of.”

Britain has never had a sportsman like him; British tennis never, in a million years, thought it could produce one. The image of the “plucky Brit” winning a couple of rounds at Wimbledon before departing in tears and a taxi after a third round pasting was shredded the moment Murray walked through the gates in 2005. Murray was a warrior; if you could pick one person to fight for you, it would be him.

But it was not British tennis that produced Andy Murray: it was his mum and dad. One family from a small town in Scotland who through the talent of the two sons and the hard work, dedication and support of both parents, produced two world No.1s with 10 grand slam titles between them.

As Djokovic said in his tribute to his old sparring partner: “Sometimes it was like you against the world.” And, at times it was yet Murray took on the world and beat it: that top ranking, wrenched from Djokovic’s grasp at the end of 2016 and held until his hip gave out the following year; three grand slam singles titles, 11 grand slam finals reached in all, two Olympic singles gold medals, the ATP Tour finals title and the 2015 Davis Cup.

And now it is all but over. Murray still has both singles and doubles at the Olympics to come but his Wimbledon career is done. There will never be another player like him.