British tennis will be bereft without him
IT seems too early for the obituary. not with rafael nadal back to no 1 in the world, roger Federer his age-defying no 2.
Even so, there was a beginning of the end feel to Andy Murray’s announcement yesterday, his acknowledgement that he was nowhere near where he wanted to be, and that a career-threatening hip operation may now be his only course of action.
it was the painful sincerity of his post; the yearning in that picture of him as a boy, all happy optimism, a life of dreams to be fulfilled ahead. Murray must fear the best is behind him now, professionally at least. he has never been blessed with the apparent effortlessness of, say, Federer. he got to no 1 through no little skill, but an equal measure of hard work.
Murray flogged himself relentlessly to match novak Djokovic, to win three Grand Slams, two Olympic gold medals, to rise to the pinnacle of his sport. Even if he returns, it is unlikely he will be of an age, or have the physical capability, to do that again.
Ominously, Murray spoke earlier this week of happily existing inside the world’s top 30. it was a surprising admission for a player who embarked on a quite ruinously punishing schedule to reach no 1.
Yet, sadly, it represents recognition of his present condition. Murray’s honesty is one of his most endearing traits. he has tried to be positive throughout this. increasingly, though, he is being made to face facts.
As are we. For, without Murray, British men’s tennis is bereft. no figure has carried a major sport on his shoulders like Murray this last decade. it is probably what has crushed him, in the end, accepting that responsibility, taking on the challenge of winning Wimbledon, of beating the best, of carrying the flag so much further than the deep end of week one.
Kyle Edmund is the only other British man inside the world’s top 100 and, ranked 50, would not be expected to reach the second Monday of a Slam. his journey to the fourth round of the 2016 US Open — beaten in straight sets by Djokovic — remains a highlight.
Murray has reached the quarterfinals or better in all but two of the Grand Slams he has entered from the Australian Open in 2011 to Wimbledon in 2017. in that time he has never failed to make it into the second week. WE
have grown so used to his presence, duking it out with some of the greatest players the sport has seen, we almost take it for granted. not anymore.
Those who carped, who wanted him to be less dour, less serious, less Scottish, who missed the nuances of his self- deprecation, his dry wit, his integrity, may soon survey the landscape of British tennis shorn of its single tall tree.
if Murray has the hip operation he has been putting off for close to a year now, it has been suggested he may not return. Opinion is divided, but there is a risk. To even get to the stage where he admits considering such a drastic measure shows the extent of the crisis. As Tiger Woods has discovered, an athlete’s failing body is tougher than any opponent on the circuit.
There was a wistfulness in Murray’s statement, and a candour, that could only have come from the man sitting in his Brisbane hotel room contemplating the future. A Pr person would have smoothed the note’s rough edges, its typos. A media manager would have sounded a greater note of optimism, too — or advised delaying any announcement until a firm decision had been made.
it could be, after all, that Murray gets a night’s sleep, wakes up tomorrow and decides to give it one last go. it could be that the Brisbane withdrawal has found him at a low ebb — he had hoped to have a decent swing at the Australian Open after all — and, slowly, painfully, he works his way back from here, without resorting to surgery.
The picture of the youthful Murray, however, suggests a deeper, private agony. A player who would give anything to turn back the clock.
not just to a time before injury, but to the very start, to do it all again, all the hard work, all the disappointments, the near misses, the sacrifices, meeting the challenges, rising to the occasion, winning the biggest battles, triumphing at last. That is what Murray can never recover: that time when everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt.