FROM THE AUSTRALIAN OPEN — It was a very tough day for Andy Murray. In a press conference, he cried and teared up. Why? He said, he cannot make the pain go away. He’s dealt with it for almost two years. He has tried as much as possible, but he isn’t fast anymore, cannot sprint, and cannot bend down due to his chronic hip. He limps, he yanks it, shakes it, but still, his head explodes.
Murray has won three Grand Slams, and he has won a bunch of other titles. When he was healthy, he was so steady, he was powerful and creative. But, once your body starts to crack, there is not much you can do. You can wait for a while, rest and change it up. If you work on it every day for many hours, you can fail. In one leg, his two bones are destroyed and they won’t come back.
He can try to fix it, to re-generate on court, when he is running, left, right, forward, backwards, and pounding it, there is no chance. For a few hours, he feels OK, but then the leg starts aching, the pain returns, and it just doesn’t want to hear it.
Murray knows that, or maybe as the frequently injured Juan Martin del Potro said, don’t leave yet, it is possible that eventually you can come back. It took DelPo seven years or so to get healthy again. However, with Murray, he is already 31 years old. If he wants to win a major again, seven years is way too long. If it takes a couple years, then maybe — given that the science improves every year — Murray can win some important wins. But he is very frustrated and in the next few months, he could wave goodbye, soon. Like maybe next week.
“I’m not feeling great,” Murray said. “Been struggling for a long time, I’ve been in a lot of pain for probably about 20 months. I’ve pretty much done everything I could get my hip feeling better. I’m in a better place than I was six months ago but I’m still in a lot of pain. It’s been tough. The pain is too much really. I don’t want to continue playing that way. I think there is a chance this is my last tournament. There’s a chance for sure. I’m not sure I’m able to play through the pain for another four or five months.”