Work Text:
Marat now knows why it’s not a good idea to actually announce too early when you’re retiring. He just wants this year to be over already.
He hates this retirement tour and being forced to play tournaments he would have otherwise withdrawn.
He hates looking at the other side of the net at someone clearly thinking about what has happened between them before.
He doesn’t want to remember why he hooked up with some random player who was great in juniors but hadn’t yet lived up to potential on the tour.
He doesn’t want to remember the days when he could invoke fear in even elite players, players who looked to him as an “elder statesman”, someone to emulate.
He looks to Lleyton, who seems to want to play until he literally can’t walk onto the court. He’d hate to think how strong the painkillers are, but he doesn’t want that type of ending.
He hates that he’s going through the motions at this point, allowing Melzer to hit him off the court as his goodbye to the New York crowd. This is a crowd that absolutely loved (or maybe loved to hate) him as he made Sampras look ordinary nine years and a lifetime ago.
He hates that Lleyton wants to continue to do this, instead of enjoying the last few times they’ll have together.
It's time to move on and it looks like that will happen all alone.