Deciding when to retire is a unique case for tennis players. Just ask Andy Murray

Definitely a possibility. Yeah, it's a definite possibility that will be the last time I play here. And yeah, I think probably because of how the match went and everything. Andy Murray, contemplating retirement, following his 6-4, 6-2, 6-2 first-round loss to Tomas Martin Etcheverry at the Australian Open

Not everyone knows when to pull the plug on a career, or how long to chase the dream of reliving the glory days. On Monday at the Australian Open, Murray came up against the fact that his return to the elite level of tennis is most likely a doomed effort. The realization that his hopes may be unsustainable was a long time coming, and it arrived almost by stealth, leaving him surprised, baffled, and disappointed.

The word many people used to describe his performance was one rarely applied to Murray: “flat.”

For the better part of the last five years, since his groundbreaking hip resurfacing, Murray has patiently but proactively worked on a comeback to the upper echelon. He has worked hard and practiced well, but he knows as well as anyone that match play is a different animal. He said of his failure to find a satisfactory level: “That's why it's so frustrating, that on the match court it's not there. I've been telling myself that at some stage it will (come back). But obviously when you have performances like today, or a batch of results over a period of time like I have done, it's tough to keep believing in that.”

Deciding to pack it in is one of the most difficult and stressful decisions any tennis player makes. It’s a very different process from what the vast majority of pro athletes who still have the hunger to compete experience. In a team sport, the decision is generally made by management. Once no NFL or NBA team wants you, it’s over. But tennis has far more levels. The independent, itinerant way of life can be addictive. The majority of pro players can keep at it as long as they desire, using wins at any level as a bellows to keep the flames leaping.

It’s different for premier players, like Murray. He’s had a marvelous run. He’s 36 years old, a father of four, a two-time Wimbledon champion, former year-end No. 1, and a national treasure in the UK. He could have brushed his hands and walked away from the game years ago. But the fire has continued to burn in Murray’s belly, even while so many of his peers have had a bellyful of tennis. He has worked his way back up into the Top 50, but he doesn’t want to hang around at or around that level.

Murray has yearned for more. But it seems that maybe there is no more.

Great players take different exit ramps. Pete Sampras swallowed back the bile when people began whispering that he was finished. He experienced setbacks, struggling through a Grand Slam drought through most of 2001 and ‘02. But he was powered by the conviction that, as fed up as he was with the game, he had one more major title in him. Despite skeptics, he went on to craft a sensational triumph at the 2002 US Open—and never played another match.

While no player has executed a comparably dramatic mic-drop, Roger Federer departed with signature elan. Still ranked No. 8, Federer officially retired at the Laver Cup, the popular exhibition event that was his brainchild, in September 2022. Although Federer was on the losing Team Europe squad, the atmosphere was celebratory, with his great rivals Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic along as wingmen for Roger’s ride into the sunset.

Andy Roddick had drifted down to No. 22 by the time the 2017 US Open rolled round. He turned 30 on the Thursday before the start of play, and used the occasion to announce that he was calling it quits when his tournament ended (he would lose in the fourth round), telling reporters, “I think I wanted a chance to say goodbye. If I do run into some emotions tomorrow or in four days, or however long, I don't want people to think I'm a little unstable, or more unstable. That's why I came to this decision.”

Murray doesn’t have that kind of clarity, or tennis fatigue. He has soldiered on. He had been looking forward to this Australian Open, but he struggled against Etcheverry from the jump and his own lackluster performance caught him by surprise. He admitted later that he wished he could get the crowd more involved. He harkened back to heroics he performed in his two wins in Melbourne last year—both knock-down, drag-out five set battles (one of which ended past 4 in the morning).

But that was then, and this was now.

“In comparison to the matches that I played here last year, it's the complete opposite feeling walking off the court. . .Whilst you're playing the match, you're obviously trying to control your emotions, focus on the points and everything,” Murray said. “When you're one point away from the end, you're like, ‘I can't believe this is over so quickly, and like this.’”

Murray is fit and healthy. Barring a disastrous injury or an utter loss of heart—something that is impossible to imagine, this being Andy Murray—he will almost surely make his way into the main draw at Wimbledon, and that’s where the challenges raised this week could come to a head.

Back in 2006, Andre Aggasi knew as he walked off the court following his third-round loss to Benjamin Becker in the US Open that it was over. He knew from the tips of his fingers to the soles of his calloused feet that it was time, and that he was at home, at the tournament and before the crowd that meant the most to him. Agassi stepped up to the occasion. The impromptu speech he made announcing his retirement that day, on the court in Arthur Ashe Stadium, was pitch perfect—a remarkable, succinct and heartfelt oration.

It’s unlikely that Murray would bid good-bye in such spectacular fashion at Wimbledon. He’s too self-effacing, too averse to making a fuss—or being the object of one. But there’s a growing feeling that the tournament will once again provide a turning point in his long and illustrious career.