Murray and his comparison with Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic: "I always was the +1"

In August of last year, during the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, Andy Murray definitively hung up his racket following his first retirement in 2019 due to hip problems. The first thing the Scotsman did was tweet on the social network X saying: "Anyway, I never really liked tennis." With this typically British humor that has always accompanied him throughout his career, the three-time Grand Slam champion gave an extensive interview to GQ.

During the conversation, the former player talked about his tennis career, his greatest successes and defeats, as well as his eternal comparison with the Big-3 composed of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Novak Djokovic, and also about his experience coaching the latter for six months.

Year 1 after Andy Murray

This will be the first grass-court season without Andy Murray in 20 years, since his debut at Queen's and Wimbledon in 2005. Despite being retired for ten months, this may be the moment he misses handling a racket the most: "I love this time of year. I used to love playing at Wimbledon and here at Queen's, so if I'm going to miss it, this would probably be the time."

This might be the first moment because so far, since his retirement in August, Murray has coped well with not being a professional tennis player: "I have talked with my team, my family, and my psychologists about when the time to retire would come. Basically, I spent all my adult life playing tennis almost every day, every week. So, without it, I wasn't sure how I was going to handle it, and I expected it to be quite tough. So far, it has been the opposite. I'm not quite sure why. I don't know if it's because it was the right time or because I gave it everything I could. I have no regrets. There are some results I would like to change, but I gave my all and got the results I got."

One of those results he can no longer change is the 2012 Wimbledon final against Roger Federer, where he succumbed to the Swiss player's game and to the pressure of ending a 76-year drought without a Briton lifting the London title. This is one of the matches he remembers most vividly, even more than some victories: "I remember being very, very upset. My memory is very different from when I won [the following year]. Then I felt very relieved, and I didn't really feel like I enjoyed that moment. It's not a result I regret, but rather the aftermath of not having enjoyed that moment more and not having spent it with the people close to me. I was pulled in many different directions, and I wish I had spent that time differently."

The pressure of seeing him lift the Wimbledon title made him take it personally: "Now I look back and think: 'Why did I worry so much about those things?' Literally, a couple of weeks after I retired, my whole perspective on results, performance, and everything changed. When I look back on my career, I am much prouder of my achievements, whereas when I was playing, I always wanted more. When I won the US Open in 2012, the question people asked was: ‘When will he win Wimbledon?’, so you end up doing it too. If they had offered me this when I was 15 and growing up playing tennis in Scotland, it surpasses any of my dreams."

An enviable record

After conquering three Grand Slams (Wimbledon 2013, 2016; US Open 2012), fourteen Masters 1000, the Davis Cup (2015), and two Olympic gold medals (London 2012, Rio 2016), Murray has largely fulfilled his childhood dream: "When people are asked what they wanted to achieve in tennis as a child, everyone says: ‘Oh, I dreamed of winning Wimbledon’ or ‘I dreamed of winning the Davis Cup’ or whatever. I don't know to what extent what people say is true, but I wanted to be among the top 100 in the world and play on the professional circuit. That was all. It wasn't about reaching the top."

Despite all these titles and his great game, Murray had the misfortune, or fortune, of coinciding with the three greatest tennis players in history: Djokovic, Nadal, and Federer. But he even managed to have his name mentioned alongside theirs on numerous occasions and even transitioned the term Big-3 to Big-4: "It is always difficult because I am aware that what these guys have achieved is much greater than anything I have achieved. That said, the reason people started calling it ‘Big-4’ was that in all major events, whether Grand Slams or Masters 1000, two, three, or four of us were always in the latter stages of the events, competing to win the most important tournaments. When I had my hip injury [in 2017], I was ranked number 1 in the world, and unfortunately, I couldn't return to where I was," laments the Scot.

"But there was a period from when I was 22 to 29 where I was at most of the big events with those guys. I had incredible matches with all of them. There was always the possibility that I could win, and in many ways, tennis fans who watched that era knew it was a great time to play because you had three of the best players of all time playing in the same era. I was always the plus one, unfortunately. When I look back and see that to cross the line at Wimbledon, I had to defeat the best male player of all time (Djokovic), I feel proud to have achieved it," notes the 38-year-old former player.

To conclude, he revealed how the experience was of coaching one of his main rivals for six months in his first coaching job: "He has a team of people from different cultures and backgrounds, Serbs, Austrians, Spaniards, so it was a different way of working. Learning to communicate well with everyone and convey your message; how to talk to Novak, try to understand what drives him, what motivates him. As the head coach, when something goes wrong, it basically falls on you. You have to coordinate everything, organize the training courts, make sure the rackets are ready, so it's a bit more stressful throughout the day and making sure things are going well. It has been interesting, but there was a lot to work on," concludes Murray, who does not miss the professional circuit at all and prides himself in his battle with the Big-3. But all this, with his personal touch that will always make him different. No matter what happens, Andy Murray will always be Andy Murray.
 

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