Andy Murray revealed the message he received from 11-time Grand Slam champion Bjorn Borg after confirming his retirement. The Brit played his last professional match on Thursday in the Paris 2024 doubles alongside Dan Evans, losing to the American partnership of Taylor Fritz and Tommy Paul.
Murray reflected in an interesting Eurosport interview on the legacy he leaves and the importance of receiving the message from “an all-time great.” The two-time gold medalist spoke with his former doubles partner Laura Robson, with whom he won a silver medal in mixed doubles at London 2012.
Murray Shares Emotional Farewell Message from Bjorn Borg
The last years of Murray’s career were not optimal due to constant injuries that prevented him from performing at the highest level. However, he managed to deliver several epic performances in the latter part of his career, including over five-hour victories at the Australian Open against Thanasi Kokkinakis and Matteo Berrettini, as well as heroic comebacks in doubles during Paris 2024.
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Undoubtedly, Murray fought to continue his career at the highest level, but when the end came, he acknowledged that he no longer felt sad about ending his 19-year career: “I’m not unhappy, I’m not upset I’m not playing tennis anymore,” the former world No. 1 said. “When I thought about this time coming in the last couple of years, I was sad and worried about it. So far it’s been a lot easier than I thought.”
Robson asked Murray if there was any message or tribute he wanted to highlight, and the three-time Grand Slam champion surprised by revealing a message he received from one of the most prominent players in history: “I got a message from Bjorn Borg this morning, which was pretty cool,” he said.
“[He’s] obviously a legend of our sport and I got to spend a little bit of time with him at the Laver Cup,” Murray added regarding the Swede, who captained Team Europe between 2017 and 2023. “He said ‘congrats to one of the all-time greats. Good luck for what’s next.'”
“I’m very aware that the guys I was competing against had significantly better careers than I have,” Murray said, referring to the ‘Big Three’. “But for a period in the middle part of my career, I was competing with them in the biggest tournaments consistently, and I managed to get to No. 1 in the world while they were all playing, and that meant a lot to me.
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Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray at Laver Cup.
“It hasn’t been easy to win the major competitions while they’ve been around. So, to have someone of that stature recognise that was obviously really special,” the former world No. 1 added. “What Rafa, Roger and Novak achieved is so out of reach for basically anyone who played the game of tennis, and things I achieved look minuscule compared to that—it can be easy to forget about winning a few Grand Slams and the Olympics,” Murray added.
“I’m proud of what I’ve achieved in this period and I’ve worked extremely hard for it, and that’s all that matters. What anyone else says about it doesn’t matter so much,” he added. “I love tennis and I have a lot of respect for previous generations and what they’ve achieved and given us a platform to go on to do what we have, so to hear from someone like Bjorn is really cool.”
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“I think we’re still at the tennis venue. My team was there, my mum was there, we took some pictures together, had a bit of a laugh and a joke,” the Scot mentioned. “My physio was downstairs and was like ‘do you want to go in the ice bath?’ I was like ‘No! I don’t need to do any of that stuff anymore.’ He was like, ‘do you want to have a quick stretch?’ I was like ‘no, I don’t want to have a quick stretch!’ But everyone was happy and in a good mood.”
