Perhaps the most notable part of Andy Murray’s “dead leg” drama at the Queen’s Club on Wednesday was how unfazed he seemed by the whole thing.
If you or I felt our right leg suddenly lose “coordination, control, and strength,” a sense of panic would understandably arise.
But judging by Murray’s matter-of-fact demeanor in the interview room, it looked like it was just another day at the office.
When asked how he sees his chances of playing at Wimbledon, a tournament that starts in less than two weeks, he noted that all of his recent treatment has focused on the left side of his back.
The unstated conclusion was that with a little attention to the right side, perhaps including a painkiller or anti-inflammatory injection, the problem might well be solved.
The entire interview was a window into the world of pain. It revealed how normalized this type of experience had become in Murray’s life. And the urge to compete can sometimes border on irrationality.
Let’s not forget that back pain has been going on for almost 15 years. But it still seems to manage to dull the pain as easily as a light sleeper putting in earplugs.
After her second Wimbledon title in 2016, her hips started to give way. Yet defying medical opinion, he became the first man to maintain a tour-level singles career with a metal hip.
As rough as Murray’s road appeared from the sidelines (though it did appear quite bumpy at times), the reality was undoubtedly even worse.
He looked blank for a moment Wednesday when asked how he was coping with his most recent setbacks, which included tearing two ankle ligaments at the end of March.
“The last few years, even though it seemed good, were tough, really tough on the body,” Murray admitted. “There were a lot of days where training and practicing and everything just wasn’t that fun.
“I tried to overcome that and find ways to get on the court and compete at that level. But tennis is a really tough sport. When you start to get older, there’s a lot of wear and tear on your body. All tennis players have degenerative joints in their backs and things like that.”
As fans of British tennis, we all have reason to be grateful for Murray’s extraordinary determination. He was born with a bipartite patella (a congenital condition in which your kneecap is split into two pieces); His hip problems suggest that he may have developed dysplasia (an extremely shallow hip socket) somewhere along this line.
But none of that could stop Murray from racking up 29 wins over the Big Three (Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic) or working out like a monster in the gym every day. This did not stop him from setting the best example for his British teammates and even leading them to the Davis Cup trophy in 2015.
The bigger question is why he continued to fight so hard as his fame faded and the spotlight shifted to younger men.
Yes, Murray loves to prove people wrong, and he has arguably succeeded in doing so by making a viable career out of metal-hipped tennis. But while he routinely advanced to the semifinals or better, he never seemed quite satisfied with reaching the second round at a major.
Where does this almost masochistic motivation come from? At the risk of playing the amateur psychologist, he feels as if he’s been taken from a dark part of his soul. Murray even admitted this in the documentary “Resurfacing”, which he published in 2019.
“My feeling towards tennis is that it was an escape for me in some ways,” he said, citing a series of traumatic events that befell his family between the Dunblane school shooting in 1996 and his parents’ divorce a year later. “Tennis allows me to be the kid who asks all these questions.”
It seems that for Murray, physical pain has always been more bearable than the emotional variety. But there needs to be a limit for that too. Many of his fans will be praying that he makes one last appearance at Wimbledon and then finds his way to a peaceful retirement.
For tennis as a whole, his struggles should serve as a cautionary tale. Are best-of-five-set matches really sustainable in the long run? Haven’t the tempo and intensity of the game reached the point where players’ health is inevitably compromised? Note that the format was designed in the 1870s, at a time when women wore crinolines and men rarely moved faster than walking.
It is hoped that Murray can enjoy his post-tennis life without the inevitable daily pain that plagues so many rugby players. But such crippling levels of wear and tear are extreme for a non-contact sport.
We’re already seeing the new generation – guys like Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner – pick up injuries with alarming regularity. Maybe it’s time to look at the demands of this seemingly genteel sport. No one wants the greats to limp out of the game.