KEIR RADNEDGE REPORTING —- The final point of Sir Andy Murray’s remarkable tennis career was played out in the quarter-finals of the Olympic Games in Paris as he and Dan Evans fell in two sets to Americans Taylor Fritz and Tommy Paul.

Murray and Evans were outplayed throughout the 77-minute match despite a volley of defiant late points before going out 6-2, 6-4. Fritz and Paul joined in the applause as Murray acknowledged the crowd, embraced an equally emotional Evans and signed autographs on his walk into retirement.

He said: ““I knew that moment was coming for the last few months. If it didn’t happen today, that was going to be in a couple of days’ time and I was ready for it. Obviously I was emotional because it’s the last time I will play a competitive match. But I am genuinely happy just now. I’m happy with how it’s finished.

“I’m glad that I got to go out here at the Olympics and finish on my terms, because at times in the last few years, that wasn’t a certainty. And even a few months ago, I was told when I first went to have my scan of my back and the issue that I had with it, I was told that I wouldn’t be playing at the Olympics and I wouldn’t be playing at Wimbledon.

“So I feel also lucky that I got that opportunity to play here and have some great matches, create amazing memories and, yeah, I feel good.”

The Olympic Games was an appropriate stage for Murray’s sign-off. This was where his rise to superstardom began when he ended British tennis fans’ 76-year wait for an Olympic men’s singles champion at Wimbledon in the London Games in 2012.

In July, a month earlier, he had lost his first Wimbledon final against Roger Federer in four sets but the following month he returned to win Olympic gold at the same venue. It was the same opponent too, and this time Murray comfortably saw off Federer 6-2, 6-1, 6-4. He and Laura Robson also won silver in the mixed doubles.

Olympic glory thus provided the crucial stepping stone from which Murray leaped a year later to win the Wimbledon title, beating Novak Djokovic in the final, ending the enduring hoodoo since Fred Perry’s last British male’s singles triumph there in 1936.

Murray was champion again in 2016, against Canada’s Milos Raonic and successfully retained his Olympic title at the 2016 Rio Games, this time with a 7-5, 4-6, 6-2, 7-5 victory over Juan Martín del Potro of Argentina.

Mother’s role

Murray, who survived as an eight-year-old the Dunblane shooting massacre at his primary school in Scotland when a gunman killed 16 pupils and a teacher, was coached as a youngster by his mother Judy.

He has also won the US Open in 2012 and would surely have claimed more Grand Slams had his time at or near the top in tennis not coincided with the careers of other all-time greats Federer, Djokovic and Rafael Nadal.

Murray will have to be satisfied – in time – with the knowledge that he was the British tennis all-time great.

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