Andy Murray has admitted he is not missing tennis amid a retirement that is proving “the complete opposite” to what he expected.
Murray opened up about his fears he would find quitting “hard”, concerns he confessed had proven unfounded since hanging up his racket after this summer’s Olympics.
“Since I’ve stopped, I feel really free and have got lots of time to do whatever it is I want,“ he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
“I can dedicate time to my children and have free time to play golf or go to the gym on my own terms.
“It is really nice and I didn’t expect that. I was expecting to find retirement hard and be missing tennis a lot and wanting to get back on the tennis court on tour.
“So far, it has been the complete opposite to what I was thinking.”
The 37-year-old’s comments come barely a fortnight after Emma Raducanu caused a stir by branding the Murray era of British tennis as ‘old news’.
That era included ending Britain’s 77-year wait for a British men’s singles champion at Wimbledon, winning back-to-back Olympics gold medals, and becoming world number one, before a chronic hip problem ended his time at the very top of the sport.
He eventually called time on his career after a succession of surgeries and subsequent attempts to reclaim former glories.
Murray said there was no “perfect ending” for a tennis player but revealed he was now feeling guilt-free around his four children and wife Kim.
“The thing that I always found difficult in recent years was that there was always a guilt associated with what I was doing,” Murray, who played 1,001 singles matches in his career, added.
“If I was going away for a trip of like three to four weeks, I would feel guilty leaving my children at home or being away from my wife for a long time with them, so missing the kids I found hard.
“But if I was at home with the kids then I was running around and spending a lot of my time on my feet after training.
“I was then thinking, ‘Is this going to affect my training or performance the next day? Should I have my feet up?’ I found that stuff difficult over the last few years.”
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