Andy Murray was left questioning his future in tennis after suffering a third-round exit to Denis Shapovalov at Wimbledon.
The straight-sets defeat was Murray’s worst at the Championship, as he lost 6-4, 6-2, 6-2 to No. 10 seed on Friday. The two-time Wimbledon champion had already battled through his first two rounds, with Nikoloz Basilashvili pushing him to four sets and his second-round match against Oscar Otte reaching a deciding fifth-set on Wednesday.
It was just Murray’s 11th match this year, having missed the Australian Open through a positive COVID-19 test before navigating groin trouble. This was his first entry to the men’s singles at Wimbledon since 2017 after suffering long-term hip problems, which required hip resurfacing surgery in 2019.
After the defeat to Shapovalov, three-time Grand Slam champion Murray, 34, was left wondering whether all the effort he’d put in pre-Wimbledon was going to be enough for him to get back to the level he wants.
“It was great playing in front of the crowds again… [it’s] something I have missed,” Murray said. “Yeah, it kind of reminds you, as well, why you do all of the work and everything. But then, yeah, on the flip side of that, the positive part is getting through the matches and, you know, feeling okay physically and not sort of getting injured.
“You know, that’s good, but then there is a part of me that feels a bit like I have put in so much work the last three months and ultimately didn’t play how I would want and expect, and it’s like is it worth it?
“Is all of that training and everything that you’re doing in the gym, unless you’re able to like practice and improve your game and get a run of tournaments, like, is it worth all of the work that you’re doing?”
Murray said there is a part of him that feels it is worth it because of the “memories and stuff from this event and playing in some brilliant atmosphere.”
He added: “But then, also, I finished the match tonight and I’m saying to my team I’m just not happy with how I played.
“So unless me and my team can find a way of keeping me on the court for a consistent period of time and allow me to practice the way that I need to compete with these guys, then, yeah, that’s when the discussions about what I do next will come in because I have genuinely put a lot into this to get to this point, but I’m not being able to practice and prepare how I need to perform how I would like at these events.
“I’m not expecting and saying, like, I would beat Denis Shapovalov. He’s a brilliant player. But I feel like I can do a lot better than what I did this evening.”
Murray will now start preparations for defending his Olympic crown at Tokyo 2020, which begins on July 23.
“The consistency is the thing that’s been all over the place and that’s something that we’ll need to change the next couple months,” he added.