PRIME Minister Sir Keir Starmer led the tributes to Sir Andy Murray after his tennis career ended with defeat in the quarter-finals of the Olympic men’s doubles.

Twenty-one years after his first professional match, Murray’s hopes of a medal-winning swansong evaporated in a 6-2 6-4 loss to US third seeds Taylor Fritz and Tommy Paul alongside his doubles partner Dan Evans.

Shortly after the defeat, Murray jokingly posted on Twitter: “Never even liked tennis anyway.”