The retirement of two tennis legends last year has been dubbed a circus.

Andy Murray and Rafael Nadal both retired in 2024 and were given send-offs but one current top 40 player has slammed the pair and accused the former of ‘clinging onto the past

‘.

Murray and Novak Djokovic were pictured working together for the first time on Tuesday morning just five days before the start of the Australian Open.

The tennis world was shocked when it was announced that Murray, who retired just last summer, would return to the sport and become Djokovic’s coach.

The pair were both rivals on the court but always maintained a friendship that goes right back to their junior days.

Two-time Wimbledon winner Murray oversaw Djokovic’s practice set against Carlos Alcaraz in which the Serb won 7-5 in a very intense session.

Not everyone in the tennis world has received the new partnership well with current world No 33 Alexander Bublik accusing Murray of living in the past and ‘grasping at something that no longer exist.”

“Now [Murray] has joined Novak Djokovic’s team,” Bublik said in an interview with Match TV.

“These are attempts to grasp at something that no longer exists, to some echoes of the past. I think this is a problem.”

He added: “Yes, I want to leave at the peak.”

Bublik even had words for Nadal, bizarrely calling the retired Spaniard ‘bald and old’.

“It is clear that I am not Rafa, my legacy will be much smaller, if it can be called such. What happened to Andy Murray and Rafa was a circus,” Bublik said.

“I can’t call it anything else. People have achieved everything, even we tennis players looked at them with our mouths open in the locker room – and then you see one of them bald and old.

“It is clear that he is no longer the same and will never be the same. In my opinion, this is even a shame, not a circus. Probably, it would be more correct to say so. Although Rafa still left normally.”

At the Davis Cup in November, Nadal gave a speech following a video montage in front of his home crowed in Malaga, Spain as he officially bowed out.

While Murray was memorialised at Wimbledon with a video montage for him on center court before he officially retired at the Paris Olympics playing doubles for Team GB with Dan Evans.

Both battled injuries in the final stages of career with Nadal securing his last major title in 2022 at the French Open.

Murray will be looking to extend his own tennis legacy with Djokovic as the Serb will look to win his 11th Australian Open title.