Andy Murray has revealed he has no immediate plans to call time on his career after suffering a heart-breaking second-round loss at Wimbledon 2023 against Stefanos Tsitsipas. The veteran was knocked out of the tournament after suffering a 6-7, 7-6, 6-4, 6-7, 4-6 loss against the Greek.
Murray admitted it will be difficult for him to find the motivation to come back to SW19 for 2024 as he has once again suffered an early-round loss.
On Thursday, Murray was enjoying a 2-1 lead but the match was suspended due to local curfew. However, the local lad could not hang to his lead on Friday as Tsitsipas made a fantastic comeback to book his place in the third round.
Asked how confident he is that he will be back next year, Murray answered: “I don’t know. Yeah, motivation is obviously a big thing. Continuing having early losses in tournaments like this don’t necessarily help with that.
“Yeah, it’s similar to, I guess, last year. I had a long think about things, spoke to my family, decided to keep on going. I don’t plan to stop right now. But yeah, this one will take a little while to get over. Hopefully find the motivation again to keep training, keep pushing, try and keep getting better.”
Murray admitted in order to win Grand Slams, one has to win consistently for a fortnight but he hasn’t been able to do it consistently.
“To have a run at these tournaments, you need multiple, multiple wins in a row. Yeah, I’ve obviously not done that,” Murray said. “Ultimately this was an opportunity for me. I had a good chance of having a proper run for the first time in a long time at a Slam. I didn’t take it.”
In fact, at 4-4 in the fourth set, Murray had a 30-15 lead on Tsitsipas’ serve. On the next point, the ball was in but the chair umpire made a wrong call. Murray feels the umpire shouldn’t have missed that call.
“Well, I mean, it was right underneath the umpire’s nose,” Murray said. “They shouldn’t be missing. They shouldn’t be missing that, to be honest. If they’re unsure, they should let the player know, I think.
“But I mean, it could only have been a couple of meters. It was such a sharp, sharp angle. It was very short. I assumed the umpire would have made the right call. The lines person, I think, called it out. The umpire called it out.
“So, yeah, I mean, you can obviously argue it’s a mistake on my part. Ultimately the umpire made a poor call that’s right in front of her.”
Tsitsipas will face Christopher Eubanks in the round of 16 on Monday after registering a straight-set win in the third round against Laslo Djere.
