Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray have been labelled “a bald man and an old man” and their retirements from tennis described as a “circus” by world number 33 Alexander Bublik.
Nadal and Murray quit the sport in 2024 after long and distinguished careers that were disrupted by injury in their latter years.
The Spaniard, the winner of 22 grand slam singles titles, bowed out at the Davis Cup Finals in Malaga while two-time Olympic champion and three-time major winner Murray exited after the Paris Games.
Both departures were accompanied by tribute videos and outpourings of emotion, something that did not sit well with Bublik.
The Kazakh told Match TV: “We all want to retire in the best possible way. It is clear that I am not Rafa Nadal and my legacy will be much less. But what happened with Nadal and Andy Murray in their retirements was a circus, I can’t call it any other way.
“They are people that have achieved everything, even we tennis players looked at them with our mouths open in the locker room, but then you see a bald man and an old man. For me it was a shame, a circus. I think it’s the most correct way to say it.”
Murray has already lined up another job and will coach former rival Novak Djokovic at the Australian Open, which gets underway on January 12.
Bublik also took issue with that, adding: “Now [Murray] has joined Novak Djokovic’s team.
“These are attempts to grasp at something that no longer exists, to some echoes of the past. I think this is a problem.”
