Nick Kyrgios believes Andy Murray deserved to retire ‘more gracefully’ after the tennis icon ended his career.

The three-time Grand Slam winner hung up his racquet in the summer aged 37 following a 19-year professional career.

The Scotsman enjoyed a glittering 19 years in the sport, where he won three Grans Slams and three Olympic medalsAFP

His final match came alongside Dan Evans in the quarter-finals of the men’s doubles at the Paris Olympics.

However, Kyrgios feels Murray could have retired sooner after a string of injuries towards the end of his career.

He told The Louis Theroux Podcast: “I look at how Andy Murray’s doing it now, and how Rafael [Nadal] is going out, I don’t want to be like that either. I don’t want to be kind of crawling to the finish line in a sense.

“What Andy Murray’s achieved in this sport is second to basically no-one… unless you are Novak [Djokovic], [Roger] Federer, or Nadal, like, the next person is Andy Murray.

“It’s like you’ve achieved everything. You deserve to go out, I think, a little bit more gracefully than he’s done.

“I think that the surgeries, the pain, it’s just not worth it, in my opinion.”

Murray underwent major hip surgery in both 2018 and 2019 before he first openly discussed retiring from tennis.

However, the two-time Olympic gold medalist did not confirm his retirement plans until July this year on the eve of the Games in the French capital.

Meanwhile, Kyrgios himself has had his own injury problems, which have prevented him from playing competitively since August 2023.

He is currently eyeing a return on home soil at the Australian Open in January, though, but added that he has found the professional circuit overwhelming during his career.

Kyrgios spoke about Andy Murray’s retirement with TherouxX: @louistheroux

The former Wimbledon finalist opened up on his mental health struggles as he explained how he spiralled “out of control”.

Kyrgios added: “I was just struggling with who I was.

“It was hard at that time and I didn’t feel like I could take a step back from the sport and kind of work on myself and get myself in the right headspace. 

“I was just playing and playing and playing and kind of dealing with everything. 

“And it was a dark time. Like I was drinking and I was spiralling out of control and I was continuing to play and travel. It was a lot.”