Andy Murray's first act after losing final tennis match at Olympics sums him up - The Mirror

Andy Murray's legendary tennis career has come to an end after his doubles campaign with Dan Evans at the Paris Olympics was ended at the quarter-final stage

So that’s it - au revoir, adieu, mange tout.

As storm clouds circled Roland Garros to pay their respects, Andy Murray took the final curtain of his magnificent career - and our sporting landscape may never be the same again.

Britain’s greatest sportsman of the 21st century deserved to bow out with a banquet on the Champs Elysees - but instead he was left with the leftovers of a finger buffet before the last Metro home.

Beaten 6-2, 6-4 by Americans Taylor Fritz and Tommy Paul in the men’s doubles quarter-finals, Muzza and Dan Evans discovered that miracles are rarely delivered to order - and certainly not three times in a week.

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When twilight dropped her curtain down and pinned it with a star, Murray tossed his wristbands and cap into the crowd before taking the time to sign autographs for an adoring stadium still chanting his name.

Walking out on court and waving goodbye, if that wasn’t a tear in his eye it must have been a tiny shard of grit from the clay court.

And when the superlatives were exhausted, all that remained was the gratitude of a nation. Thanks for what you did for your country, Sir Andy.

In the myriad of French accents on the Roland Garros concourses, it was easy to pick out the Brits who had come to support Murray’s last defiance of Father Time.

Most of them sounded like Del Boy Trotter’s parlez-vous creme brûlée, a cocktail of cor blimey and bonnet de douche. In Del Boy’s lingo, Murray is the creme de menthe of Team GB, the fromage frais who became the big cheese of British summer time.

We will only believe he’s gone when his he is not shoving Eastenders behind the red button because his prime-time thriller is running deep into a fifth set and we measure his brinkmanship in saved match points.

Where British tennis once installed Buster Mottram, who was better known for being a National Front sympathiser than his backhand, as its No.1 and we hung out the bunting if Jeremy Bates made it to the second week at Wimbledon, Murray raised the bar.

He raised it from limbo-dancers’ levels to an Olympic pole vaulter’s altitude. Where British tennis used to take the short cuts to No.1, like John Lloyd marrying Chris Evert, Sir Muzza took on all the big guns in his path and spiked them one by one.

In an age when he had Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic for company, he managed to win Wimbledon twice and collect back-to-back Olympic men’s singles gold medals. That’s like being top scorer in four competitions where his opponents included Pele, Maradona and Messi.

No wonder the man with the titanium hip was feted with a standing ovation, Union flags and Saltires when he marched out onto Court Suzanne Lenglen for one last hurrah. But after saving seven match points in two white-knuckle rides, this was always going to be a step up in class.

Fritz and Paul are both ranked in the top 13 of the ATP singles chart, and were installed as No.3 seeds in the Olympic doubles draw, for good reason: They can play and their forehands are like tracer bullets.

Murray and Evans stood no chance once they had shipped the first four games without reply and the United States pair took the opening set 6-2 in half an hour.

Hope sprang eternal when the Brits broke Fritz’s serve to keep the second set alive, but it’s the hope that kills you.

So, yes, that’s really it. Time to roll the credits like they do at the end of every French film.

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