Roger Federer brings down curtain on his career with a defeat, but still dazzles alongside longtime friend and rival Rafael Nadal.
The world’s top-ranked men’s singles player was on the cusp of greatness, but now the top-ranked men’s doubles team at the U.S. Open has just lost in the semifinals.
Andy Murray and John Isner came into the tournament on the right path. They were two of the most successful professionals in history at the time, and were the two singles players with the most recent Grand Slam titles. They were also two of the greatest doubles teams of all-time.
Then, at the U.S. Open, it all came crashing down.
Murray broke his left arm in his third-round match against Gael Monfils, he then suffered an abdominal tear in his quarterfinal against Marcos Baghdatis. The injury caused him to withdraw from the rest of the tournament, and he wasn’t able to play again until the year’s final.
On the same court as the defending U.S. Open champions, he had two chances to win. Murray’s only path to the final was to beat Rafael Nadal in the fourth round. But instead of getting that chance, he lost in the quarterfinals to the man Murray had just defeated in three sets.
It was a crushing loss for Murray, who is widely considered one of the greatest players ever to play the sport.
“I do not ever want to lose in competition,” he said following his U.S. Open loss. “Even if I am playing well in other tournaments. That’s part of my life now. Not to get a chance is part of my life.”
Murray’s year-end news conference after his U.S. Open loss was one of the more emotional of his career. Murray had just lost the biggest match of his career and was left struggling to explain what happened to his teammates.
At one point, he put his head on his desk and started crying.
After his failure on the biggest stage, the loss was especially devastating for him, being one of the few top-tier athletes still in the current generation of tennis stars.
In the year since Murray’s major-league failures, he has turned