"I want to play" says Murray shutting down retirement talks

Three-time Grand Slam champion Andy Murray has vowed to continue playing for as long as his body allows him to after reentering the world’s top 100 for the first time in over three years.

The former world No.1 is currently up to a ranking of 95th in the world following what has been an encouraging start to the season. In his second tournament of 2022, Murray reached his first Tour final since 2019 at the Sydney International before losing to Aslan Karatsev.

Speaking to Eurosport ahead of his return in Rotterdam, Murray admitted:

“I’m 34 years old and with the problems I’ve had over recent years, I’ve got to be careful. But as long as I feel good and I’m healthy, I want to try and play. That’s why I went through all the recovery and training over the last few years. I don’t want to feel good just to train, I want to feel good in matches, so I’m going to keep trying to play as much as I can.”

Plans about his retirement resurfaced after Murray announced he would be skipping the entire clay season. However, Murray is adamant that it's only to avoid getting injured on a surface that is the harshest upon the body. Accompanying the announcement was a statement that read:

“The past couple of years, the clay has made issues worse, last year I had some issues at the beginning of the year, the clay didn’t help, so I’ve spoken to my team about that and this year while I feel good and healthy, I don’t want to take that risk."