FIRED BY THE WARRIOR SPIRIT
Murray has made a habit of beating adversity and is ready to draw upon his inner strength again
IT reads like a report from a forensic pathologist. The subject is a Caucasian male, aged 31, all organs in excellent health, but with evidence of surgeries to wrist, back and hip, signs of chronic stress on shoulder, ankles requiring support for movement, kneecap split in two, and a noticeable fracture in the foot.
These are the types of traumatic injuries one suspects would result from a fall from a skyscraper. They are, instead, a list of the public ailments that have beset Andrew Barron Murray in his career as a tennis player. He has regularly hit the ground with a clatter. He has always bounced back up again.
His latest recovery from hip surgery is just one of many he has endured throughout his career, both psychological and physical. The key to his achievements lies not in that wondrous sliced backhand, that fleetness of foot across any surface or that ability to think three shots ahead as if he was the Garry Kasparov of tennis and courts should be marked in alternate black and white squares.
No, Murray’s defining trait is simple to state, though much harder to appreciate fully. He comes back. The rise of a somewhat gawky, awkward teenager to become Britain’s greatestever sportsman has been relatively rapid but never smooth. Murray, both physically and emotionally, has been left in a ditch, wheels spinning on numerous occasions.
His reaction is always to look at the problem — whether it be Rafa Nadal or a troublesome back — and then meet it head on. He matches misfortune with hard labour, personal weakness with an inner strength.
His history is littered with setbacks. His career basically started with one. As a boy, he was told that he had a bipartite patella (crudely, a split kneecap) and playing high-level sport might not be impossible but certainly painful. He plays on with it two decades later.
Similarly, he was regularly maligned as the boy who could not quite make it. His loss of five grand slam finals before winning his first was regularly highlighted. It was less scrupulously observed that the only players to beat Murray in grand slam finals were and are Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic, the former the greatest of all time, the latter in the top five of all time. Murray, of course, has subsequently beaten both when it has mattered, either in a grand slam final or for Olympic gold.
His rise to the top, then, has hardly been seamless. Two matches from the almost 900 he has played on the ATP Tour serve to tell the Murray story succinctly.
In 2008, the Scot faced Nadal in the quarter-finals of Wimbledon after having come back to beat Richard Gasquet from two sets down in a tumultuous match in the previous round. The Spaniard swatted Murray away in three sets.
The vanquished local hero retreated to his room at home, shunning personal contact. He emerged after a period of mourning to demand the DVD of the match. Repeated viewings led to significant changes: technical aspects of his game were tweaked, he pledged to become fitter and he sought expert advice on how to aid recovery, knowing that one five-set match is usually followed by a similarly tough task at the highest level. Murray, in short, became better, stronger.
In 2012, Murray faced Federer on Centre Court, the playground of the peerless Swiss wonder, in the men’s final at Wimbledon. He lost in four sets, after having taken the first. He was devastated. He cried. That was July 8. On August 4, on the same court, against the same opponent, Murray won the Olympic gold medal in three sets. Encouraged by Ivan Lendl, he had taken inspiration from the earlier loss, knowing that he had faced huge pressure and survived. Murray, in short, became better, stronger.
This is what he does. Always. It is this ruthless introspection that ensures that his ability to bounce back is not restricted to finding a way to beat extraordinary opponents but to overcome personal injury.
In the early days of July 2014, a couple of journalists were ushered into a room behind the media centre at Wimbledon to ask further questions of the Scot after he had fulfilled his main duties to television, radio and newspapers. Murray had just been skelped in three sets by Grigor Dimitrov yet agreed to talk further as a favour to the sportswriters, though he must have found it difficult.
Hunched on a chair, his face flushed, his eyes empty, he gave his Bulgarian nemesis due praise, offered no excuses and said he had missed chances, particularly early in the match. There was no entertaining of excuses, particularly over back surgery that had perhaps left him vulnerable in terms of fitness. He said he would work hard and would come back. He did. Murray, again, became better, stronger. His broad back carried Team GB to a Davis Cup in 2015. He won a
second Olympic gold in 2016 after triumphing at Wimbledon in the same year. In the comic-book world of top-class sport, the bicep-bulging Rafa could be Hulk, the elastic Novak would be Mr Fantastic and Andy would be Spider-Man. This name owes little to his ability to climb even the tallest of buildings, though his achievement in reaching No 1 in the world when Federer, Nadal and Djokovic are all playing, induces a dizzying wonder akin to vertigo. Rather, it testifies to Murray’s deeply human rather than superhuman quality. It is embedded in the flesh of his mother, Judy. On her back is the tattoo of a spider. ‘When I look at Jamie and Andy and their careers now, or I look back at my own, I think of Robert the Bruce and the story of the spider,’ she writes in her memoir, Knowing The Score. This tale, of course, is that of a fugitive Bruce watching a spider who tries, tries and tries again, to swing by a thread to another beam. It succeeds, galvanising a man who feared himself defeated.
‘There are few competitors who embody the spirit of trying and trying again until they work out the route to success more than Jamie and Andy,’ writes their mother.
The hip injury and subsequent surgery has apparently made medical experts out of a myriad of commentators. It has left the tennis world searching for significance in every terse update. The truth is that no one outside the tight Murray circle knows precisely what is going on and what the prospects are for full rehabilitation.
His supporters are left to live in hope. This has not been raised by his decision to pull out of a grass-court tournament in Rosmalen in the Netherlands next week. The recovery has been slower than Murray expected. The fates seem to be against him making an impact if he does, indeed, make an appearance at Wimbledon which starts next month. Yet, he insists he could make his comeback during the grass-court season.
Amid this swirling uncertainty, however, there remains one truth. If will has its way, the Scottish Spider-Man will be back with his eyes focused on scaling the heights, determined to be better and stronger.