Andy Murray’s tearful farewell, Simone Biles’ brilliance and boxing controversy
Paris saw the best of Olympic sport as Andy Murray ended his career with one last night under the floodlights and US superstar gymnast Simone Biles made history but a decision to allow a female boxer to fight a rival who had previously failed a gender test left organisers under fire.
Murray, Great Britain’s most successful tennis player of the Open era, and a two-time Olympic champion, had hoped that his doughty double act with Dan Evans might delay his retirement by just a few more days. But the US team, Taylor Fritz, 26, and Tommy Paul, 27, proved too strong on Court Suzanne-Lenglen at Roland Garros.
After the dramatics of the previous two rounds, when Murray, 37, and Evans, 34, had saved a plethora of match points to keep the show on the road – and the floodlights on – the result this time rarely seemed in doubt, with the fist-pumping British pair no longer able to rage against the dying of the light in the quarter-final tie.
The match ended 6-2, 6-4, with Evans at the end pushing his visibly emotional friend back on to the court to take the roars of approval on what Murray has said will be his final professional outing.
For a sporting superstar performing at the top of their game, it was to the Bercy Arena that the savvy Olympic spectator went on Thursday night where Biles, 27, won her sixth Olympic gold medal, and second of the Paris Games, in the women’s all-around final.
