Andy Murray has a plan in place for when he will retire from tennis but is not willing to publicly disclose when he’ll step away from the sport.
Murray, 36, opens his Wimbledon campaign against fellow British player Ryan Peniston on Tuesday as he looks to make another run at the tournament he won in 2013 and 2016. Murray comes to Wimbledon having won at Surbiton and at Nottingham alongside a first round defeat at Queen’s, and says he is hoping to make a deep run at the championships.
Murray says he has no plans to retire after this year’s competition, but given his age and the fact he has a metal hip – after having hip surfacing surgery in 2019 – he says he does have an end-date in mind for his career but won’t necessarily announce it ahead of time.
“I mean, I have an idea in my head of when I would like to stop,” Murray said. “That’s not definitive. A lot of that is just I think it is good to do that so you can start planning a little bit.
“I’m aware, based on how my last sort of five, six years have gone, that things can change very quickly, as well. I’m keeping an open mind to that. Yeah, I do have an idea of when I’d like to stop, yeah.”
Murray said he had to take stock after his third-round defeat at the Australian Open earlier in the year after playing back-to-back five set matches in his first two rounds. “After the matches I was having, it was like, this maybe isn’t that good for me, like, long-term to be playing those sorts of matches.
“I could keep doing that probably, I don’t know, until the hip finishes. I don’t really want to do that. I want to finish on my terms when I’m fit and healthy and still competing at a good level.
“I would like to finish in that way rather than it being, like, an injury. I know you can’t control that entirely. But, yeah, I do feel like I’ve still got a period of time left where I’m going to be able to, yeah, dedicate the physical work and the training on the court to allow me to still perform at the highest level. But, yeah, that can’t go on forever, unfortunately.”
Murray was also asked about the potential investment from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) in the sport after ATP Tour chairman Andrea Gaudenzi confirmed on June 23 talks have taken place. Murray has previously said he would not play in exhibition matches in Saudi Arabia but said Saturday he would have to “think” about playing there if his ranking was at risk.
“I mean, in the past when we were asked to go and play there, we were asked to go and play exhibition tournaments,” Murray said. “If they become, like, major tournaments on the tour, it becomes a slightly different question, and it’s a difficult one, really, based on how the tour and the rankings and everything work, how important they are to get into other events and stuff.
“When you start missing them, you obviously get penalized for that. Yeah, it’s definitely something I would have to think about. Unfortunately it’s the way that a lot of sports seem to be going now.”