Murray may end up with surgery to fix hip misery
ANDY MURRAY is expected to reveal plans to combat his hip problem by the end of this week, in what increasingly looks like the biggest decision of his career. The 30-year-old Scot has taken copious amounts of specialist advice on how to proceed with his injury but has kept his thoughts to himself and a tiny handful of advisers.
The option to go for surgery might keep him out well beyond next year’s Australian Open and he is taking his time to decide the best course of action.
His presence is already being missed by British tennis, as after Kyle Edmund’s retirement on Friday night from the US Open third round in the middle of his match, Britain will be without a player in the second week of a Grand Slam for the first time since the 2013 French Open.
While Jo Konta’s rise to prominence has been a huge boost, her first round exit here has provided a reality check after something of a giddy period for the British game.
The one consolation for her is that other results in the past week suggest her chances of making October’s season-end WTA Championships for the eight leading women do not look to have been severely damaged.
But beyond her and Murray the picture is a sobering one, especially as Dan Evans, whose hearing into his positive test for cocaine is expected later this month, is sure to drop off the rankings in the next nine months.
When the new listings come out a week tomorrow there will be three British women in the top 150 and four men in the top 200. Numbers three to five in the British men’s table — Aljaz Bedene, Cameron Norrie and Brydan Klein — all learned their tennis mainly outside the UK.
All this will no doubt have been noted by the Lawn Tennis Association’s incoming chief executive Scott Lloyd, who finally takes over from the now departed Michael Downey on January 1.
As for the ever restless Murray, he will be desperate to get back into the fray as soon as possible, rather than switching his attentions to a post-playing career bound to have some involvement in British tennis.
He will probably have been at home this week furiously questioning what might have been when he looks at the bottom half of the men’s draw that he pulled out of a week ago.
It was blown even more wide open late on Friday when John Isner was knocked out of the fourth by Mischa Zverev, the old school serve and volleyer who travels in the shadow of his younger brother Alex, who has been among the casualties.
The half’s last eight, from whom one of the tournament finalists will be drawn, are an eclectic and unlikely bunch.
A fit Murray would have fancied his chances against all of them, to put it mildly. Among them is Diego Schwartzmann, the Argentinian who at 5ft 6in is the shortest player inside the top 100. Brilliant prospect Denis Shapovalov, who came past Edmund, is the youngest to make the fourth round of a Grand Slam in nearly 20 years.
Paolo Lorenzi, the 35 year-old Italian journeyman, faces South African beanpole Kevin Anderson. Probably the most likely finalist is Querrey, although so many Americans succumb to the pressure of expectation at their home Slam.
The sight of Querrey, who got past the hobbling Murray in Wimbledon’s quarter-finals, will be just another painful reminder for the Scot.