Thank you Andy Murray

Watching Andy Murray in the Brisbane tournament wasn’t a very agreeable experience. He struggled to beat one quite ordinary opponent and then lost in straight sets to a young up-and-coming one. Admittedly, this wasn’t unexpected. He has been away from competitive tennis for a long time now. It was no surprise that he looked rusty, often slow and uncertain, and making the sort of mistakes one doesn’t associate with him. More worrying was the fact that he seemed to be limping occasionally between points, though one reflected that even when things are going well, he has often moved badly about the baseline – until play restarted, that is. So one might have thought nothing of it, if he hadn’t said that his hip was still a bit painful sometimes. Since then he has had a public practice match against Novak Djokovic in which he won only two of the twelve games played; not exactly a shock, but not very encouraging either.

Sadly, it now seems as if Brisbane and the Djokovic match, little more than a knock-up, have brought him, reluctantly, to the point of admitting that he can’t come back. The pain he has been experiencing is just too much. Weeks of rehabilitating treatment and numerous practice sessions have failed to do what was required. Now that his body has – finally, it seems – rebelled. He is never again going to be the player he was, never again a serious competitor. For someone who had given two-thirds of his life, some twenty years, to tennis, this is a bitter thing to accept. So now, in an emotional Press Conference, he has said that this Australian Open may be his last tournament – though he would still like to end his career on home territory at Wimbledon, scene of his greatest triumphs.

One had hoped it might have been different, of course one had. Admittedly one said, “coming back from injury and surgery is difficult and it would be foolish to expect that he will go far in the Australian Open. Indeed, it will even be a surprise if he wins his first-round match in which he will play Roberto Bautista Agut, who is ranked 22 in the world and who actually beat Djokovic in Dubai a few days ago. Murray would surely have hoped for an easier first-round opponent”.

“Still,” the optimistic voices said, “if it is foolish to think that he will go far in this tournament, it would be just as foolish to write him off now. This time last year and throughout the Spring Novak Djokovic, who was likewise returning after surgery, looked as if he was heading for the departure gate. He too was slow and uncertain and making lots of mistakes, even foozling simple shots. He was losing to players who had rarely taken a set off him. He seemed disgruntled and dejected, unable to understand why his game had apparently deserted him. After an early departure from Roland Garros he said he might not play Wimbledon. Of course, he did. His form returned. He won the title there again, then won in New York and finished the season as World Number One again. So Murray may yet make a similar recovery”.

Optimistic voices, whistling in the wind indeed.

Now it appears that this was all fanciful, and we have to accept that Murray’s remarkable career is all but over. Of course, he has always had his detractors, people keen to point out that in terms of Slams won, he lags behind many: not only his contemporaries – Federer, Nadal and Djokovic – but also behind Sampras, Agassi, Wilander, Edberg, Becker, McEnroe, Borg and Connors etc. So indeed he does, and it is some sort of special pleading to argue that he has been unfortunate in his generation – to have been up against three of the greatest players of all time.

Well, yes, but this is, as I say, special pleading which can’t disguise the fact that, quite simply, he hasn’t been as successful as his three great rivals, and can’t be considered as other than the fourth best of the last decade. Fair enough; nevertheless, his career has been a great one: two Wimbledon titles, one American one, two Olympic Gold Medals, beaten finalist at Wimbledon and Roland Garros, also five times in the Australian Open. Indeed, he has never lost a Slam final to anyone but Federer, Nadal and Djokovic. He was also the most important player in the British team which won the Davis Cup for the first time since the long-distant days of Fred Perry and Bunny Austin.

There’s another way to measure what he has done. Take all the top-ranked British players since the Second World War. Add up all their achievements. Put these on one side of the balance and Murray’s on the other, and theirs will leap up and hit the beam. He has won more, much more, than all the preceding British Number Ones since 1946 put together. There were some good players among them: Tim Henman, Greg Rusedski, Jeremy Bates, John Lloyd, Buster Mottram, Roger Taylor, Mike Sangster, Bobby Wilson, Billy Knight, Roger Becker, Tony Mottram – I’ve probably forgotten a few. But there you are: add up their record in the four Slams, add up their other tournament and Davis Cup victories, and the sum total of their successes falls short, far short, of Murray’s.

Of the outstanding eighteenth century racehorse Eclipse, it was said “Eclipse first, and the rest nowhere”. Murray stands in relation to all British male tennis players since 1946 as Eclipse did to the thoroughbreds that trailed in lengths behind him.

In the months since his last operation, while one waited eagerly for his return, it seemed that he might have to adapt his style of play, change his approach, for the way in which he has played, and been successful, has taken a toll on his body. There was a precedent, and an encouraging one. A few years ago, when he was a little older than Murray is now, Federer seemed in sharp decline.

He was losing, sometimes quite early in the big tournaments, to very average players. Many were ready to write him off. He had always been self-sufficient, but now decided he needed help. So he asked Stefan Edberg to coach him. Edberg, himself winner of six Slams, had been a beautiful player and, more to the point, one of the finest exponents of serve-and-volley game I have ever seen. He now encouraged Federer to adjust his game, to come to the net more often and earlier in a rally, and, by shortening the points, conserve his energy and put less strain on an already aging body.

Murray, I thought, “has been a master of defence, distinguished by his ability to make opponents play at least one more shot in a rally. He has been a master of tennis as a war of attrition in which he wears his opponents down. But he is also a very fine net player, and I have often longed to see him come in to volley more often instead of hugging the baseline. So perhaps he needs to do this now, to adapt, to risk being passed in order to have the chance to hit earlier winners and so play shorter points, shorter matches in order to have a longer career – just like Federer. But it depends of course on what his damaged hip permits, on whether his body can still answer the questions top-level tennis poses.”

Well, sadly and reluctantly, that question seems to have been answered. It would be nice if he feels able to play on the grass again, at Queen’s perhaps, and certainly at Wimbledon. He may even play some Doubles, perhaps with his brother Jamie. But, as far as top-level tennis goes, it seems like “good-bye”. “Good-bye and thank you for so much.” There was a lifetime, almost eighty years, between Fred Perry’s last Wimbledon title and Andy Murray’s first. Many despaired of ever seeing a British player lift the All-England club’s trophy again. How long before another does?