Americans Taylor Fritz and Tommy Paul ousted Great Britain's Daniel Evans and Andy Murray on Thursday at the Paris Olympics, bringing the 37-year-old Murray's career to a close.
Third seeds Fritz and Paul raced to a 6-2, 6-4 win, booking their place in the Paris semi-finals. They will next meet Australians Matthew Ebden and John Peers.
“This has just been such a great week on the doubles court with Tommy," Fritz said. "Obviously today, I wasn’t expecting getting a little emotional when Andy is leaving the court. It’s crazy. He’s someone I’ve looked up to my whole life, so it’s sad and also kind of crazy to be the ones to play him in his last match.”
Evans and Murray scored two dramatic wins this week, saving five consecutive match points in the first round to defeat Japan's Taro Daniel and Kei Nishikori. They produced more magic in the second round, fending off two match points against Belgians Sander Gille and Joran Vliegen.
“I’m sad to be finishing but the last couple of weeks since we arrived here have been brilliant," Murray said. "I’ve had a lot of fun being around the team. The Olympics is such a special event to be around all the athletes and being part of such a big team cheering each other on.
“I wish we could have done a little bit further, but maybe we were a little fortunate to be in the quarter-finals. We could have lost the first two matches, but we fought so hard in all of them. Wish we could have played a little bit better today, but that wouldn’t have guaranteed that we would have won because Tommy and Taylor played really, really well.”
A vocal crowd on Court Suzanne-Lenglen tried to will Evans and Murray to another thrilling comeback. Paul served for the match at 5-2 in a lengthy game that Evans and Murray won on their fifth break point. Fritz held his nerve to close the quarter-final on their second match point before all four players shared a warm embrace at the net.
“It got tricky there in the end,” Paul said. “I was joking around with him earlier, I said, ‘If we get a match point, we better get the first one because we all saw their first couple rounds.' But obviously that wasn’t the case. It got tricky there and luckily I had Taylor to serve it out for me."
Murray, a 46-time tour-level titlist who reached No. 1 in the PIF ATP Rankings, was in tears as he waved goodbye to the crowd.
The American team of Austin Krajicek and Rajeev Ram, seeded fourth, advanced to the gold-medal match with a 6-2, 6-2 victory against Czechs Tomas Machac and Adam Pavlasek. Krajicek and Ram on Wednesday ended the hopes of Spanish stars Carlos Alcaraz and Rafael Nadal.
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