Andy Murray heads into retirement after Olympic doubles loss to American duo of Fritz and Paul

PARIS (AP) — Andy Murray's professional tennis career ended with a Paris Olympics doubles loss in the quarterfinals Thursday night.

The 37-year-old Murray had said the 2024 Summer Games would the final event of his career, and he and partner Dan Evans were beaten by the American duo of Taylor Fritz and Tommy Paul 6-2, 6-4 at Court Suzanne Lenglen.

The British pair had managed to stave off a total of seven match points — well, in this case, let's call them “retirement points” — earlier in the tournament, five in the first round, and then two more in the second round, to extend Murray's career.

But Murray and Evans could not create that sort of magic again against the third-seeded Fritz and Paul.

Murray is a three-time Grand Slam singles champion and the only tennis player with two Olympic singles golds — from London in 2012 and Rio de Janeiro in 2016. His first Wimbledon championship, in 2013, made Murray the first man from Britain to win that trophy in 77 years.

He also won the title at the All England Club in 2016; his first major championship came at the U.S. Open in 2012.

Murray has dealt with a series of injuries in the latter stages of his career, including needing two hip operations, one for a metal implant in 2019. Most recently, he had surgery to remove a cyst from his spine last month.

That forced him to skip the singles events at Wimbledon and the Olympics.

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AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games