Elite sport isn’t meant to be fun, is it?
Even for stars who love what they do, success can be a grind
“Never even liked tennis anyway.” So tweeted Sir Andy Murray after his final professional appearance on August 1st. The three-time grand-slam winner and twice Olympic champion announced his retirement before the Paris games, in which he reached the quarter-final of the men’s doubles. His post racked up more than a million likes. Its dry tone was self-mocking, typifying an athlete who really did love tennis—but sometimes looked miserable while playing it, especially towards the end of his career, when the pain on his face was very real as injuries took a toll.
Explore more
More from Culture
Millennials and Gen Z are falling hard for stuffed animals
Plushies are cute, cuddly and costly
Ten years after the Charlie Hebdo massacre, satire is under siege
Public support is waning for the right to offend
Why do rebels and revolutionaries love “Paradise Lost”?
John Milton’s epic poem has galvanised rabble-rousers for centuries
The Colombian powerhouse behind some of streaming’s biggest hits
If you enjoyed “Narcos” or “One Hundred Years of Solitude”, you have Dynamo to thank
What Haruki Murakami’s fans get wrong about him
He is not so much a surrealist as a dogged observer of solitude
The British take their crisps more seriously than any other nation
No other snack bridges the class divide in the same way