Britain\u2019s greatest\ntennis player Andy Murray emotionally announced on Thursday 10 January he is\nplanning to retire and next week’s Australian Open could be the final\ntournament of his career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Murray has battled\nto recover from a chronic hip condition for more than 18 months, undergoing\nsurgery in Melbourne a year ago, but was forced to admit in a tearful press\nconference that his efforts have not been enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Murray was on the\nverge of breaking down as he entered the press room and, asked how his hip was\nfeeling, managed to say “not great” before overcoming by his emotions\nand having to walk out of the conference. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
He returned after\nseveral minutes to deliver his devastating news, saying: “Obviously I’ve\nbeen struggling for a long time. I’ve been in a lot of pain for about 20 months\nnow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I’ve pretty\nmuch done everything that I could to try and get my hip feeling better and it\nhasn’t helped loads. I’m in a better place than I was six months ago but still\nin a lot of pain. It’s been tough.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Murray will contest\nhis first-round match against Spain’s Roberto Bautista Agut on Monday but that\nmay prove to be the final match of his illustrious career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 31-year-old\nsaid: “I’m going to play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I can still\nplay to a level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Not a level\nthat I’m happy playing at.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“But it’s not\njust that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The pain is\ntoo much really and I don’t want to continue playing that way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“During my\ntraining block (in Miami last month) I spoke to my team and told them I can’t\nkeep doing this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I needed to\nhave an end point because I was sort of playing with no idea when the pain was\ngoing to stop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I said to my\nteam, look I think I can get through this until Wimbledon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“That’s where\nI’d like to stop playing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“But I’m also\nnot certain I’m able to do that.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After another pause\nwhile Murray sat with his head on the desk, he was asked whether this might be\nhis last tournament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Yes I think\nthere’s a chance of that for sure because I’m not sure I’m able to play through\nthe pain for another four or five months,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I have an\noption to have another operation, which is a little bit more severe than what\nI’ve had before in having my hip resurfaced, which will allow me to have a\nbetter quality of life and be out of pain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“That’s\nsomething I’m seriously considering right now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Some athletes\nhave had that and gone back to competing but there’s obviously no guarantees\nwith that and the reason for having an operation like that is not to return to\nprofessional sport, it’s just for a better quality of life.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The hip problem\nfirst emerged after his French Open semi-final loss to Stan Wawrinka in June\n2017, although Murray revealed as he limped through Wimbledon that he had been\nmanaging a condition for a number of years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I have a\nseverely damaged right hip,” said Murray.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Having the\noperation last year was to give it the best possible chance of being better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I have been\nplaying with hip pain for a number of years, it wasn’t as if it just started at\nthe French Open after my match against Stan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“It got to a\nlevel where I didn’t recover from that match, pushed it over the edge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Having the\noperation would hopefully make it as good as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“It didn’t help\nwith the pain at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“There are\ncertain things on the court I cannot really do properly now, but the pain is\nthe driving factor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I can play\nwith limitations, that’s not an issue, it’s having the limitations and also the\npain is not allowing me to enjoy competing, training or any of the stuff I love\nabout tennis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I have tried\nto deal with it, talked about it, but none of that makes my hip feel better,\nunfortunately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I\nwish it did, because if it did, it would be feeling brilliant right now.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is especially\ncruel that the problem emerged only a few months after Murray ascended to the\ntop of the world rankings, cutting short a career that looked like it had a lot\nmore to give.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Britain\u2019s greatest tennis player Andy Murray emotionally announced on Thursday 10 January he is planning to retire and next week’s Australian Open could be the final tournament of his career. Murray has battled to recover from a chronic hip condition for more than 18 months, undergoing surgery in Melbourne a year ago, but was forced […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28036,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53,37,27,112],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest","category-local-news","category-sport","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}