The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Sport at top level is difficult to give up
You would need to have a heart of stone not to get emotional reading Andy Murray’s Instagram post about his injury torment. Every athlete dreads their body letting them down with no obvious route to put things right.
Pulling out of the Brisbane tournament has been quickly followed by withdrawal from the Australian Open and Murray getting on a plane home.
I think it’s now pretty clear he’s going to roll the dice one more time and get surgery on his hip.
The last couple of weeks have made me change my mind a bit on where his head is at.
A few months ago I would have said he was in a pretty contented place, with his Grand Slam titles, knighthood, a fortune in the bank and a happy family life.
No athlete wants to slip into retirement when it’s not on their terms, but Murray looked to be a guy who would be happy with what he had done.
The moral of the story may be that you should never underestimate just how big an addiction top-level sport is. And, by that, I mean the competition more than the actual sport itself.
Murray is probably missing it more than he thought he would.
Although their stories are totally different, there are similarities with Tiger Woods; if there’s a chance to keep going, most athletes will take it.
We’ve yet to see if Woods has it in him to persevere week after week if he becomes an average tour golfer who doesn’t have a realistic chance of winning the majors.
Murray has said he would be happy just to be on a tennis court again and being a top-30 player. Saying that when you’re injured is one thing; thinking the same when journeymen players are beating you is another.
The big difference is that tennis players know their career lasts roughly to their mid-30s, whereas golfers can go on a lot longer.
If Murray has successful surgery that lets him compete for another couple of seasons and receive the send-off he deserves and maybe play some doubles with his brother, I think he would take that now.
“You should never underestimate just how big an addiction top-level sport is
Olympics draw
We got news of the draw for the Olympics this week. It’s all very real now.
Our first game will be against Russia and our last game is against Canada, with Sweden and Switzerland somewhere in the middle.
Overall, I’m pretty happy with it. The harder games aren’t weighted to one side.
The Canada game is the one that jumps out, but hopefully by that stage we’ll have qualified for the medal matches.
Both ourselves and Rachel Homan’s team have tended to get stronger as competitions go on so it probably suits us both.
The gap between matches and the balance of one-game days and twogame days is fine as well.
We’ve only got two tournaments left before we fly out for our holding camp at the end of this month.
Virtually all the hard work is done for Pyeongchang, and it can’t come quickly enough.