The relationship between an athlete and his or her body can be tumultuous, filled with dishonesty on both sides. The athlete can ask too much, ignoring the body, whether its needs are more strength or more rest, less pounding or fewer workouts. The body then responds with protest, sometimes viciously, cruelly.
So it was that Andy Murray found himself last summer on the hard courts of Washington, hobbling to the sanctuary of a bench at 3 a.m. in a stadium dotted with only the most ardent fans. "I couldn't walk," he recalled this week. The bench was calling. He grabbed a towel. His face fell into it. He had won his match. Yet for more than a minute, he sobbed.
"I was going through a tough time," Murray said.
Andy Murray brought his body back to Washington this week, back to the Citi Open, where he will slowly ask it to do what it once did, which is play tennis at the highest level. The 32-year-old Scotsman was No. 1 in the world as recently as 2017, was the Wimbledon champ as recently as 2016, accomplishments which can never be taken from him.
If those signatures feel long ago, it's because in the interim, Murray's body betrayed him. When that happens, the battle becomes two-fold. Murray had to fight the physical talents of whichever opponent he faced. For a time, that was nothing compared to fighting his own physical limitations, namely a right hip that, by this year's Australian Open, "was completely gone. It was finished."
Andy Murray speaks during a press conference before this year's 2019 Australian Open. Photo / Getty
Yet he's standing here in Washington saying, quite clearly, he's not finished.
"The question I sort of asked more recently is: Why not?" Murray said. "Why should I not be able to get back to playing? What's the reason for why I shouldn't be able to get back to where I was?"
Being a champion - which is what Murray is, what with two Wimbledon titles, a U.S. Open victory and two Olympic gold medals - requires a certain level of defiance. It might not even be hurt by a touch of insanity. Lindsey Vonn has skied to World Cup victories on knees that shouldn't have supported her body. Tiger Woods won a U.S. Open on a broken leg. Michael Jordan scored 38 points in an NBA Finals game with debilitating flu-like symptoms. Overcoming obstacles that would fell the rest of us yields admiration. It enhances legacies.
What we ask of athletes, though, doesn't compare to what they ask of their own bodies. Murray is here this week with an understanding of his limits, and that's important. He won't play singles because his body is not yet ready. For the here and now, it's doubles with his brother Jamie, beginning Wednesday.
He will do so, it seems, with what amounts to a bounce in his step, which is such a contrast to the labored gait that, a year ago, carried him to that bench, to that towel, to those sobs. His first surgery on the hip came in January 2018. He withdrew from Wimbledon. He hobbled through Washington. His body was broken. His mind realized it. Retirement seemed imminent. There would have been no shame. He arrived at the Australian Open, laying out his plans.
"I think I can kind of get through this until Wimbledon," he said in January. "That's where I would like to," and he paused. This is emotional, having your body tell you things you don't want to hear. "That's where I would like to stop, stop playing. But I'm also not certain I'm able to do that."
Andy Murray. Photo / Photosport
What followed was an epic, signature Murray performance in the first round. He fell behind Spain's Roberto Bautista Agut by two sets. He had no business competing. He forced a fifth. He could hardly move. He did not want to lose.
But he did.
"If this was my last match, what an amazing way to end," he told the crowd afterward. "I gave, literally, everything I had."
And then the sport tried to give back to him. On the video board came a montage of the world's best players, men and women.
"Congratulations, buddy," Roger Federer said.
"Sometimes, life is not perfect," Rafael Nadal said. "I just want to say thanks for all the things you give to our sport."
A career would end, acknowledged as legendary. The sport would move on.
Murray's ravaged hip was bad enough that he couldn't fly home immediately after the match because merely sitting on a plane would have been too painful. But he also wanted to ask his body one more question: How might it respond to another, different surgery? Bob Bryan, the legendary American doubles player, had become a text buddy of Murray over the previous year, extolling the virtues of a surgery in which metal is inserted into the hip, over the femur and into the joint. It could be transformative - not just for tennis, but for life. Murray didn't let January end before he underwent the procedure.
And now, a year after crying into that towel, six months after his muscles were cut open and foreign objects were placed into his body, Andy Murray is in Washington again.
"I'm obviously back feeling brilliant," he said, "and I'm happy."
If you're out watching Murray this week, consider what it took to achieve that happiness. He and his body have reached a truce. If the question is, "Can a 32-year-old former champion with a surgically repaired hip return to the form that once defined him?" Murray has a quick answer.
"There's no good reason for why I shouldn't be able to," he said.
