"But now I’m like, ‘Whatever, it’s fine. Scratch them up and stuff, whatever’" - Andy Murray discusses condition of 'precious' Olympic medals

In his career, Andy Murray has won the biggest titles the sport could offer him. He retired as one of Britain's most successful tennis players, boasting three Grand Slam titles, two Olympic gold medals and a plethora of other big rewards. Despite the prestige they hold, Murray is not so fussy about keeping them behind glass, even letting his children get a hold of them.

Murray won his first major title back in 2012 at the US Open. By that point he had already clinched eight Masters 1000 titles and reached a Grand Slam final back in 2008, losing out to Roger Federer. In 2013, Murray produced a stunning display of tennis to come out as the champion at Wimbledon, defeating the world number one Novak Djokovic in straight sets. It was a famous victory in front of a home crowd at the iconic SW19 venue. He repeated the fate three years later. This time he dethroned the big serving Milos Raonic to once again lift the trophy high above his head. Later that year, he rose to the number one in the world after winning the ATP Finals. This victory saw the Scot climb to the pinnacle of tennis, earning him the year-end No. 1 trophy.

All these precious trophies sit in a cabinet that his wife made for him. Nevertheless, this may seem like a wasted effort with Murray rarely even having a second though about what he achieved in the sport. “When we moved house my wife made like a trophy cabinet. It’s downstairs, out the way but yeah, there’s one in there. It is pretty big, it’s a decent size," Murray stated on the Tennis Podcast. "But actually, I mean, I’m fine with them being in there, but I don’t go and look at them daily. It’s not something that I think about loads."

"I actually got it back last week. It had been in there for, I think, about a year, but yeah, I got it back recently. Olympic medals, yeah, they’re in there [the cabinet]. Do I ever wear them? My kids wear them sometimes, yeah," Murray admitted.

He has a total of three Olympic medals. The first one came after the huge disappointment of losing in the final of Wimbledon in 2012. He exerted his revenge over Federer to become Olympic champion. He could not think about that for too long as he was straight back onto the court with Laura Robson to compete for the mixed doubles gold medal. Unfortunately, Murray was unable to repeat the fate, losing out to Victoria Azarenka's Belarus. Four years later, he came through a tense battle against former US Open champion Juan Manuel del Potro to double his gold medal tally.

“I was quite precious about them in the beginning," Murray acknowledged, but this feeling would not last forever. "But now I’m like, ‘Whatever, it’s fine. Scratch them up and stuff, whatever’. One of them wanted to take one of them into school, I don’t know what it was. They were doing something at school and we were like, no, that’s a bit much to send them in with one of them. So we gave them my Beijing Olympics participation medal instead, which they were happy with.”

While the medals may have fallen down the pecking order, a new precious item has got Murray's attention: pins collected at the 2024 Paris Olympics. “I’ve still got all of them, yeah. I’ve kept all of them. That was something that, at the time, I absolutely loved doing it every single Olympics whereas now I’m a bit like, did I sort of spend a bit too much time walking around the village and stopping at different tables in the restaurant?" he laughed. "Just like, oh, that guy is from Eritrea, that’s a rare pin. I’ll go over and ask if he’s got one, and they’re just, like, having scrambled eggs.”