Andy Murray is in pain. That his right hip has been causing him profound physical discomfort for some time is no secret. In 2018, the 31-year-old patched himself up for 12 matches, winning five.
But what became clear on Friday, during a press conference in advance of the Australian Open, is the emotional torment Murray has been enduring. “I’ve been in a lot of pain for probably 20 months now,” he said, his voice cracking. “I’ve pretty much done everything I could to get my hip feeling better. It hasn’t helped loads.” He pretty well conceded defeat for his first-round match on Monday against the Spaniard Roberto Bautista Agut, a player to whom he has never previously surrendered a set.
For a man who has built his game on fight, on bloody-minded indefatigability, this was almost as shocking as his tears. Injury seems to have ground Murray down much as he has worn out and disheartened so many opponents on the court. The truth is, though, that Murray has played through pain for much of his 14-year career, indeed even longer. It would be hard for him to remember a time when swinging a racquet has been a simple, joyful act. He was born with a bipartite patella, a split kneecap, that was first diagnosed when he was 16.
“The expert delivered his final blow,” recalls Judy Murray in her memoir, Knowing the Score. “A casual: ‘Well, I’d be very surprised if he’ll ever be able to play tennis at a high level again.’ In that moment, on that sofa, I absolutely could have swung for him. Andy’s face fell on hearing the news … the dreams, the ambition, the hope, just draining from him.”
Murray defied that prognosis and his mother believes that dealing with adversity back then made him a stronger competitor. Aged 18, he became the 2004 US Open boys champion. He joined the senior ranks, but immediately spent three months on the sidelines dealing with back pain. He was still growing, but his bones, especially in his spine, could not keep up with what he was asking from them.
Murray certainly has pushed his body to the limit. He has had recurring problems with his ankles and back and always an ambient humming from that congenital bipartite patella: “When Andy bends his knee,” notes Judy Murray, “the bone looks like Kermit the Frog smiling.”
He has tried various treatments, from strengthening the muscles around the joint to daily sessions with a portable ultrasound, but it was always containment not cure.
In 2010, Murray acknowledged that pain was simply part of his life. “[My knee] was just something I was born with,” he said, “and I am going to have to deal with it for the rest of my career.”
What impact must that have on an athlete – not only physically, but mentally? As armchair fans, we tend to think of sports injuries in a clinical, simplistic way. We read: “He will be out for six weeks” or “She will be back for Wimbledon” and naively trust that rehabilitation will be a straightforward and predictable process.
But clearly it isn’t. The research and the anecdotal evidence all suggest that the mental scars can take even longer to heal than the physical ones. A 2017 study of professional footballers who had been out with long-term injuries found that 99% “reported experiencing some kind of psychological disruption”. This manifested itself in discombobulation, gambling addiction, even depression.
So it is hardly surprising that Murray was tearful on Friday. And tennis, which runs 11-and-a-half months a year, with considerable travelling stress, is an especially attritional sport. Rafa Nadal plays many of his matches on basically one leg – and still usually wins – while Murray now hobbles between points like an old man getting up to turn on the kettle. Even Roger Federer, impervious to injury for a decade, has been dogged by his knees and back, and latterly a hand problem.
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In an Instagram post, hugging his mum, Murray wrote that the response to his announcement made him feel “more positive”. There has been talk of another operation called hip resurfacing – a joint replacement effectively – and he has been checking in with Bob Bryan, the great doubles player, who has recently undergone the procedure and returns to the Australian Open with his twin Mike after missing most of 2018.
Andre Agassi, in his autobiography, wrote unforgettably about “The End”. He was 36, but felt 96. He was “a quasi cripple”. He also had been born with a condition – spondylolisthesis, a defect of his vertebra – that meant he should never really have been a professional athlete. But with the help of a steaming-hot shower (and cortisone shots) he could just about keep on keeping on. “Please let this be over,” he would think, as the warm water ran over him. And then, “I don’t want it to be over.”
