Kim Murray: ‘It will be lovely to have Andy at home – God knows I need the help with the children’

Kim Murray has just finished speaking to her husband on the phone when I meet her at a hotel near her home in Leatherhead, Surrey. It is Wednesday morning, the day after Andy Murray’s tense, thrilling victory with Dan Evans catapulted the pair into the (ultimately doomed) quarter finals of the men’s doubles at the Paris Olympics, and an exultant Andy was keen to share the love with his family.

Yet Kim, his wife of nearly a decade, is far removed from the bubble of adulation he enjoys when on tour.

“He’s walking down this street in Paris, everyone is trying to take selfies with him, but I was in the middle of a nit crisis with my eight-year-old daughter Sophia,” she explains. “So I didn’t have much time to talk.”

“The match finished late, the children are exhausted. Sophia has only just got into watching him on TV and can’t contain her emotions. So watching Andy play tennis is now even more stressful than before.”

Two days later, the dream is over. Andy and Evans crashed out after losing 6-2, 6-4 in straight sets to American pair Tommy Paul and Taylor Fritz, bringing to a profoundly emotional end the dazzling career of Britain’s greatest living sportsman.

Andy was visibly distraught and even Clare Balding choked up. Later, Andy would quip on social media that he “never even liked tennis anyway”.

“It was a bittersweet evening,” says Kim. “I know how much it would have meant to Andy to get one more win, to go on round further, but he’s happy with the ending he got. It’s the right time for him. He’s happy with the decision to retire. And it’s been really special for him to have finished at the Olympics.”

Kim, as you may have gathered, has not been in Paris to watch the three-time Grand Slam winner’s last ever match; Andy announced at the start of July, after withdrawing from the Wimbledon singles competition, that these games would be his swansong.

“I’ve got four children under eight and it’s the start of the summer holidays, so no, I’ve been here,” she says. Evidently remaining at home has suited this veteran of nail-shredding crunch matches just fine. The couple’s last child, Lola, was born in 2021; they also share Edie, six, and Teddy, four, and Sophia.

“Anyway, it would have been a ballache to get there. Judy [Andy’s indefatigable mother and former coach] had been taking 6am flights on the days he had matches and coming back at 10pm. Obviously I couldn’t do that. And for me, nothing can beat the 2012 Olympics.”

London is where Andy beat Roger Federer to win gold in the men’s singles; he defended his title four years later in Rio.

“But the Olympics do mean a huge amount to Andy so it would be lovely if he got one final medal, if only for Sophia, who seems to think three medals isn’t very many.”

Andy also won silver in the mixed doubles in 2012; had he notched up a third gold, would there have been a danger he might decide not to hang up his racket after all?

“Don’t,” says Kim. “I’ve already told him I’ve got a holiday booked for three weeks’ time and it deliberately clashes with the US Open. Just so he knows.”

Now 36, and as much a fixture in the stands over the last two decades when Andy has been on the court, Kim looks pretty much exactly how we have become used to seeing her – bouncy, honey-coloured hair, Hollywood sunglasses and chic but not too-flash clothing. Today she’s wearing a linen shorts suit to stay cool in the baking heat.

Her relationship with Andy effectively spans the period he has spent in the public eye. They met at the US Open in 2005 and went public a year later, just as he was establishing himself as the great new hope of British tennis. He replaced Tim Henman as the British number one in February that year.

The couple married in 2015, two years after Andy’s first Wimbledon victory in 2013, and Kim Murray’s every gasp, fist-pump and head-in-hands display of despair from the terraces has mirrored the nation’s response her husband’s torturous rallies, devastating losses and astonishing victories during his truly remarkable career.

But no longer: the former world number-one is a professional tennis player no more, after that defeat in Paris.

“Obviously it will be lovely to have him at home – God knows I need the help with the children. But the good thing is he’s got really into golf. Because the last thing I need is to have him declaring he’s bored at 2pm on a Tuesday.”

Murray’s irreverent expressions of amusement when it comes to her famously driven husband is in keeping with a woman who has never tried to capitalise on his celebrity. This doesn’t look to change any time soon – Murray comes across as much too secure in her own skin for that.

All the same, Andy’s retirement coincides with a pronounced uptick in his wife’s professional life. We’ve met ostensibly because Kim has collaborated with the gardener Sarah Raven on a tulip collection, although, lovely though this sounds, she acutely appears aware that it’s also the sort of pastime a wealthy but bored wife, with an interest in gardening, would choose to give her life a bit of purpose

Murray doesn’t need purpose, however: she already has quite enough. She may have kept out of the public eye while Andy was carving himself into the national consciousness as a sporting hero, but as well as having four children in quick succession she has spent the last three years overseeing a complete refurbishment of Cromlix, the 15-bed country hotel on the outskirts of Dunblane, where Andy grew up, that she and Andy bought in 2013. They were married there in 2015.