His agonising fightback to fitness after career-threatening hip operation
A warrior and an absolute gem: Judy Murray hails lost tennis star in TV tribute
to the sport. The feature- length documentary receives its world premiere in London tomorrow, with Andy in attendance.
He is now back playing after injury and his and Kim’s third child, Teddy, was born last month.
Last week, he admitted his injury affected their marriage: “I don’t know if the children noticed because when I’m with them I’m always trying to put on a brave face, but my wife, definitely.
“It put a lot of strain on our relationship, just because I was down all the time.
“She has been brilliant and I would probably be quite selfish, just in terms of thinking about myself and how I’m feeling all the time and not actually realising the impact that has on all the people around me.”
One of the other revealing moments is when Andy describes a series of childhood traumas that led to him dealing with anxiety as a youngster.
In it, Andy talks about how three incidents – the Dunblane school tragedy, his parents’ divorce and his brother Jamie moving away to pursue a tennis career – all came in quick succession and affected him greatly.
Tennis was an escape and even today he says the sport makes him feel like a child who is full of questions.
“It took me by surprise,” Olivia said. “We’d talked six months previously about why he took tennis so seriously and he said there was another part to it that he didn’t want to go into at that time. He sent me this audio file later in the year, in December, when he was at his lowest. I think it helped I was an outsider.
“I think it was something he needed to say at that time. I hope it was cathartic to explain and marry up where his head was at, why he was feeling that way and what the sport meant to him.”
Olivia was hugely impressed by the star’s calm determination to recover his fitness and says she never saw him giving into anger or frustration.
She said: “Andy was really stoic and graceful about a very complicated and emotionally disturbing journey and I just couldn’t understand how he never lost his temper.
“His identity is attached to the game and to be putting his body through surgeries, rehabs, multiple cortisone injections, and having to explain his situation continually and to be knocked back time and time again, as well as being in constant pain, I thought it was amazing he never got angry.
“He became upset, of course, because nothing was in his control and he wanted this so much, but I think that’s what sets him apart from everyone else.
“Even when he announced his retirement, because of his determination, I never thought it would be the end.”
The film begins in January 2018 in Australia, as Andy goes for arthroscopy surgery and follows him through rehab, a failed comeback, meetings with specialists, a retirement announcement at the following year’s Australian Open, more surgery and rehab, and a winning return to doubles action at the Queen’s Club tournament in London in June.
“When he had his surgery in 2018, his wife, Kim, asked me if I’d be interested in documenting the six-month rehab,” Olivia explained.
“I’ve known the family for a few years and I think because of that, we had a very relaxed environment.
“Within the first two months, Andy hit his first bump and it began to dawn on him that the surgery might not have been the thing to fix the hip, and we reassessed the type of film we were making.”
Andy never asked Olivia to stop recording, even during his hip resurfacing operation.
“He felt it was important to show people what an athlete’s body goes through, the trauma that’s inflicted on it and then trying to come back and compete. I was surprised the medical staff allowed me in to the theatre.”
Olivia believes the documentary, which Andy has yet to see, will provide a lasting documentation of what he has gone through to return to the game.
“It’s a universal film and h o p e f u l ly wi l l inspire people to commit to do what they dream of, too,” she said.
Judy Murray will never forget her first meeting with Elena Baltacha.
The acclaimed coach is among the family, friends and fans paying tribute in a TV documentary to the Scots tennis star five years after she died aged just 30.
“She bowled up – ginger hair, cap on, big glasses, shorts,” said Judy about her first meeting with nine-year-old Elena at a tournament in Dunblane.
“She asked, ‘ When am I playing?’ and I went, ‘you need to tell me who you are first’. ‘I’m Elena Baltacha’.
She kind of hassled me all day. She was desperate to get on. She won the tournament, her thumping serve meaning she lodged balls in the hedge, upsetting her opponents in the process.
“It was an indicator of her natural strength. You know, little girls aged nine just do not serve like that.”
Elena continued to develop that ferocity in her game as she grew older as Judy, an acclaimed coach and Sunday Post columnist, went on to work with her in Britain’s Fed Cup team, by which point they had known each other for more than a decade.
“She was really generous of spirit and yet if you watched her playing tennis, you would see a competitor who looked as tough as nails,” explained Judy, speaking on the documentary.
“It’s almost like this split personality. On the court, the competitor and warrior, off the court, just an absolute gem.” In 2012, Elena realised a lifelong dream to follow in her parents’ footsteps and become an Olympian. It was Judy who broke the news to her.
“I couldn’t wait to tell her,” she smiled. “I knew she would just go nuts.
“I was sitting beside Nino (Elena’s husband and coach) and she was just…aww, you would think you’d given her the world!”
Judy added: “If you want somebody to be a great role model as a British No 1, both on and off the court, you would pick her every time.”
Elena retired from the sport in 2013, and was diagnosed with terminal cancer of the liver in January 2014. She died just four months later.
The documentary, Elena Baltacha, is the latest from the award-winning purpletv, also behind programmes on Rose Reilly, Tommy Burns and Jock Stein.
Her father and former St Johnstone footballer Sergei, her brother, Sergei Jr, and her husband and coach Nino Severino contribute to the documentary.
It tells how Elena overcame diagnosis of primary sclerosing cholangitis, a disease of the liver and gallbladder, when she was 19 to break into the world’s top 50, win 11 singles titles and represent Britain at the London Olympics.