Andy Murray: ‘Don’t be sad for me! I like doing this – no one’s forcing me to play’

I s he or isn’t he? One minute Andy Murray, one of Britain’s greatest living athletes, tells me he’ll be back on the court at Wimbledon this month, playing well in the tournament that made his name. And the next, he doesn’t sound so sure. “The test is being on court with the best players,” he says in a break in training, “and that’s something that, right this second, is difficult to give a definitive answer to.”

The joy of sport is its unpredictability, but Murray’s not talking about that. His body has been through such immense stress and strain – throughout his career, but especially over the past few years – that he can’t rely on it. He genuinely doesn’t know what it can do.

Still, he’s optimistic. “Yes, I feel good!” he says, and he looks great: bright-eyed, clear-skinned, steady demeanour. His top is Scottish dark blue. “I want to be fit and able to play, and I think I will be. My team and the physios and doctors feel as if I will be. I’m excited to play at Wimbledon again, in front of crowds. I’ve missed that.”

And yet… “Over the last few years, whenever I’ve been asked, ‘How do you feel?’, I’m like, ‘Yes, I feel good!’ And then something happens.”

Something happens is right. If you were to go over Murray’s recent past, you might conclude that someone, somewhere (Novak Djokovic perhaps?) has an Andy Murray doll and has been sticking pins in it – especially in his right hip, which has been his downfall. His pain has been so extreme that two years ago, at the Australian Open, he seemed done. At a pre-tournament press conference, asked, “How have you been feeling?” he broke down. “Not great,” he said, and couldn’t say any more. He had to leave the room, in tears.

When he returned, he said he hoped to be able to continue to play until Wimbledon, then stop: “But also, I’m not sure I’m able to do that.” And he got upset again, fiddling with the rim of his cap as he tried to contain his emotions. It was absolutely gutting to watch. At only 31, he was being forced to end a brilliant career in the sport he’d loved all his life, and he was devastated.

But then, a miracle! Less than three weeks later, he had major hip resurfacing surgery and decided to carry on playing; to fight his way back. It’s not been easy. He’s won some matches, flunked others. He’s caught Covid, picked up other injuries, seen his world ranking drop from top four to the 120 mark. All this when he’s already achieved so much. His successes are on record for ever. You can’t help thinking: why even try to make it to Wimbledon? Why put himself, and his battered body, under such pressure?

M urray is aware that some people think he should stay retired. It’s brought up with him all the time, by the press, as well as ordinary punters. Even though he’s come off social media, he knows. “There’s a lot of people telling me to stop playing tennis, that it’s sad, and they don’t want to see me playing like this, and he can’t stay fit, and he can’t do this, why is he still doing this,” he says, the words coming out in a rush. “And I say, ‘Don’t be sad for me! I like doing this, and I’m choosing to do it. No one’s forcing me.’ Sport is a strange one. People seem desperate for you to retire and stop doing what it is that you love doing.”

He’s nice to talk to, Murray. Honest and precise – he doesn’t like being misinterpreted – but also ready to have a laugh, to chat about his parenting style, make deadpan jokes about line calls and VAR. Years ago, he wouldn’t play with the press; he just gave one-liners and exuded resentment. But who hasn’t changed since their teens? Despite all his body problems, he seems sanguine. Relaxed enough to smile when I ask the inevitable, “How do you reeeally feel?” question. Relaxed enough to deal with teasing about the new Castore kit he’s designed, which is made of merino wool: “I trained in it and it was really nice, comfortable. It works.” Relaxed enough to talk about the possibility of not playing at Wimbledon: “Obviously, I’d be gutted. It’s what I’m working for, it’s why I do all the training, so I can compete in these big events.”

On paper, Murray is extremely unlikely to win Wimbledon again. We know this, and yet, when he plays, we also know us fans will secretly hope he can go all the way. It’s what sport is about, isn’t it? Battling back from impossible odds. And he might, mightn’t he? Until he plays in a top competition, uninjured, he simply doesn’t know how good he is. “If I’m playing with someone who is, let’s say, ranked 300th in the world, it’s quite difficult to gauge,” he says.

He needs to play the top seeds. Unfortunately, you can’t just call them up to knock a few balls around. Murray did play Djokovic in a practice game in Rome before the Italian Open in May. “I did well, I was happy with how I played. You learn more about your game, so it was definitely worthwhile. And I enjoyed it.” He thinks for a bit. “I can’t remember the last time I played Djokovic in a competitive match. I think it was at the beginning of 2017 in Doha.”

That’s a long time ago, but he still sees himself in the mix. “Look, when I go and practise with the top guys, my expectations of myself are still as high as when I was 20,” he says. “Even though, when I reflect, it’s like, ‘OK, you haven’t played many matches recently, you’ve been injured…’ I’m aware that I should be going into those practice matches with a slightly lower expectation, but once I actually start playing, I am still impatient. That’s always been the case for me. I think it is important to be in a rush if you’re trying to get to the top, or get to compete at the highest level. In sport, you need to have that mindset.”

Ah, the mindset. In elite sport, it’s all-important. It can make champions a bit dull, because they’re obsessed with tiny details the layperson can’t get excited by. They have a strange attitude towards their own body; detached and analytical. As Murray’s wife, Kim, has said: “Andy’s body isn’t his own.” It’s a business, it’s other people’s: his sponsors, his physios, his fans.

Murray has often treated his body like a machine. He separates fitness from pain, for instance. “All the physical testing I did in December and recently shows my fitness is as good as it’s ever been,” he says. “But injuries or pain affect your ability to compete. Why I’m doing all of the work, and why I’m keeping myself in great shape, is so that when I get through the worst of these problems, I’m able to still compete at the highest level.” He trains all the time, basically, so that when the pain stops, he can go straight back in at the top.

But, recently, even aside from his hip, there always seem to be obstacles. He was all set for the Australian Open this year – had prepped well, done his best training for two years. And then he tested positive for Covid-19. He was gutted.

“I couldn’t believe it,” he says. “Because I’d done everything right. I was supposed to play a tournament in Florida, which I decided not to, to avoid travelling, and because there were a lot of cases in the area. So I was only at my house and the National Tennis Centre. I have an electric car, so I wasn’t getting petrol and in contact with anyone that way. I felt as if I’d done everything right. And it went wrong.” He blamed the NTC’s Covid protocols (“There were tons of people in the gym”) and was upset because not only did he miss the tournament, he passed the virus on to Kim, then pregnant, and their three children: “I was pissed off,” he said. “I care about that a lot.”

In early March, their fourth baby, a girl, was born, so he withdrew from a tournament in Dubai. Later that month, he had to pull out of the Miami Open because he strained his groin, apparently by rolling over in bed. That was difficult, too, because nobody could find out what was wrong. “I’m someone who likes clarity. I like to be able to ask a question, and get a black or white answer. If you don’t know what the problem is, how do you deal with it?”

When we speak, the French Open is about the begin. He’s not there, either, this time a tactical decision, so he can better prepare for Wimbledon. He might not have played as many matches as the other players, but he’ll be getting on grass sooner.

“To my knowledge, none of the players played on grass last year, because of the pandemic,” he says. “And one of the years I won Wimbledon, I pulled out of the French Open and gave myself more time to prepare on grass.” He pauses. “I’m not saying the outcome will be the same!”

W imbledon is Andy Murray’s arena and fortress, the place where the British public got to know him and learned, after a while, to love him. Initially, he was labelled a brat – too shouty on court, too explosive. But after he lost a four-set final to Federer in 2012, and cried afterwards, the public took him to its heart.

A year later, of course, he actually won; and from then, he pushed himself harder and harder. In 2015, he led Great Britain to their first Davis Cup win in 79 years and in 2016 he landed nine titles, becoming the first male player to win a grand slam (his second Wimbledon title), a Masters 1000 event (he won three), the ATP finals and Olympic gold in one year. He was ranked world No 1 in men’s singles, won Sports Personality of the Year, and was knighted.

And he achieved all this with an underlying hip niggle that became a huge problem after a gruelling match in Wimbledon 2017 against Sam Querrey. He rested it, but it didn’t help. Not only could he not play tennis; he couldn’t even walk. He was the world No 1 and he couldn’t put his socks on. So in early January 2018, he had an operation on his hip, which removed a ligament, repaired damaged cartilage, scraped out some inflammation. He embarked on months of lonely rehab with his small team (two physios, one coach). But it didn’t work. By August 2018, he was in floods of tears on court. He’d just beaten Marius Copil in Washington, but he was in agony. He sat in his chair, covered his face with a towel and sobbed. “I feel like this is the end,” he said. A couple of months later, at the press conference in Australia, it really was.

“I was done with tennis,” he says today. “I was getting no enjoyment out of it.” His dad thought he’d be happy at home with his kids; his mum wasn’t so sure. And soon after, he started researching veteran player Bob Bryan, who’d had hip resurfacing; perhaps he could do the same? Only a few weeks later, at the end of January 2019, Murray did exactly that. His recovery was astonishing: not only could he walk, he could play tennis. The excruciating pain had gone.

It’s not perfect, but it works. “When it comes to your body, it’s been used to moving in a certain way for a very long time,” he says. “So when you change it by putting a bit of metal in there, it’s going to change your movement, and put stresses and strains on other parts of your body. So I knew it was going to be difficult. There’s some imbalances in the biomechanics. But yes, it felt good.” By the spring of 2019, he was playing again. He won doubles at Queen’s with Feliciano López. The Wimbledon where he was going to retire, he played mixed doubles with Serena Williams and got to the third round. He was back.

His fans have been on this agonising rollercoaster with him. One reason to love him, perhaps, is that he doesn’t make it look easy. He’s never been one of those sportspeople who glides through adversity. Murray, who as a child survived the 1996 Dunblane school massacre, fights for everything, digs deep, doesn’t give up. Judy, his redoubtable mum, says that criticism spurs him on. Resurfacing, a revealing 2019 documentary made by Olivia Cappuccini about his hip trauma years, shows this. There is no slackness; he does everything that’s asked of him in physio. He thinks about the pros and cons of everything, how it will affect other people. He takes things seriously.

In the documentary, you see that much of his rehab exercise takes place at his and Kim’s lovely home in south-west London – big glass doors to the garden, open-plan kitchen – where he also has a gym and indoor pool: he marches up and down in the water, getting his legs back to strength. He’s filmed at godforsaken hours of the morning, pumping up and down on gym equipment.

Where he seems most relaxed is during his little bits of downtime, teasing his physios or playing with his kids. He has three girls and a boy; the oldest is only five. I ask him for parenting tips. First, he says, get your kids into a sleep routine as quickly as possible (apparently Kim is amazing at doing this) because, if you don’t, you’re knackered and everything falls apart; and two, try to understand things from their perspective.

“Often, as adults, we see things from our perspective,” he says. “Like when their toy falls in a puddle, we see that as not a big deal, you just take it home and wash it. Where for them, it’s the most important thing in the world at that moment. So try to understand them when they’re upset and sad, rather than pooh-poohing their feelings. I think it helps them calm down quicker.”

He clearly enjoys having children: “Though we’re not having any more! Four is enough. They can play doubles, yes,” he smiles. He often watches TV in the middle of the day with Sophia and Olivia, when their younger brother, Teddy, and the baby are having their naps. He does it to join in but also because the age difference means three-year-old Olivia can get upset at something her older sister isn’t bothered by (this happened recently with Beauty And The Beast).

He and Kim take parenting seriously. They used to let the kids watch Peppa Pig, “but we stopped because Peppa is not very well-behaved”. They’ve been through the Frozen stage, as evidenced by an Instagram post in which he wears what his daughters called a “skirt” – his kilt – plus a homemade Elsa tiara. Whatever show they’re into, he lets them play the songs in his car. “The current ones we’re listening to are from Gabby’s Dollhouse. And to be honest, I do sometimes have them on when the kids aren’t even there.”

Murray is so normal in some ways, and so not in others: immersed in his family, but also entirely singular. Unlike in team sports, tennis is just you against another person, inching your way, point by point, sometimes over hours, to victory or defeat. Does he find it lonely?

“This is just my feeling and I’m not downplaying team sports,” he says, clearly wanting to downplay team sports. “All of the athletes in team sports, I’m sure lots of them are mentally unbelievably strong people. But I like that in an individual sport, the outcome is solely reliant on you. If you play badly, you’re likely to lose. If you play well, you will win. Whereas in a team sport, you could be excellent, but the rest of your teammates play badly, and you lose. I like the fact that you have more control over the outcome yourself.”

Being singular is a tough skill to learn, though, and Murray found his early years as a professional quite difficult. Because it’s not only on the court that you’re doing it on your own. “I really struggled when I was younger, because ultimately, you’re the boss,” he says. “You decide who coaches you, who your physio or trainer is. And at 19, 20 years old, you don’t know who is good. You’re also in charge of a team of people who generally are older than you. I was very naive with all that stuff, certainly from a business perspective. You can put your trust in people who are promising you something, but are maybe looking out for their own interests. And you’re deciding who to hire.” Soon after we speak, four-time grand slam winner Naomi Osaka is forced to leave the French Open after refusing to speak to the press, due to the impact on her mental health. It reminds me of how under pressure Murray seemed when young. Footballers have their managers to take the press flak when they lose.

His late teens were a baptism of fire. At 18, he played David Nalbandian on Centre Court at Wimbledon and lost in five sets (his legs cramped). Suddenly, this unknown Scottish teenager, who’d chosen tennis over football only aged 14, was famous.

“I went from playing in front of 10 or 15 people,” he says, “to playing on Centre Court in front of 15,000 people and millions on the TV, and getting put in front of TV cameras, and followed home, and having paparazzi outside my house. I didn’t know how to deal with that.”

He wonders now if there is a way to prepare kids such as him, whether sports governing bodies could educate talented teenage players about finance, and training teams, how to handle the press. He had to learn his public persona on the job, and for a long while had a reputation for being defensive and stroppy. Gabby Logan joked that he was the “moodiest, most miserable bastard” she’d interviewed. But he wasn’t, he just disliked how the press portrayed him; plus he was single-minded and often emotionally overwhelmed, especially on court.

Even now, he says he’s not great at telling people close to him how he feels. This started in his teens: “I didn’t know how to approach those conversations. So you just end up saying nothing, then your frustration builds, because you don’t know how to communicate. It’s still something I struggle with.”

You seem pretty good to me, I say.

“Well, there’s certain people that I will communicate well with, and then there’s certain situations where I won’t. This is making me sound like a nice person, and I’m not suggesting I am, because I can be not nice in certain situations” – he pulls a “You’ve seen me with umpires” face – “but with my team, I’ve worked with a lot of them for quite a long time, and I don’t want to often upset them. So I find it difficult to tell them if I’m annoyed.”

Throughout his career, he’s worked on and off with sports psychologists and when he was younger, he says, “the question they always asked was, ‘What would you tell your children?’” Meaning: would you tell your children to do something that brings them success, or something that makes them happy? “Like most people, I just want my children to be happy. So it’s better to do something you love, even if you’re not as successful at it, than something you hate, even if you’re a big success. That is what I would tell my children.”

Yet there’s no script for this moment, when the success fades. Will the happiness fade, too? What of the frustration of achieving so much, and never getting there again? Mats Wilander, world No 1 in the 80s, has gone on record wondering whether Murray should take wild cards away from young players; many armchair critics think the same.

Murray does not agree. He’s learned that life isn’t fair: it’s one of the ways he’s got through the past few years. “If you live by that mentality, that life’s not perfect, then when something doesn’t go well, you may be slightly better equipped to deal with it. Whereas if your mentality is, ‘Everything is perfect all the time, I deserve everything,’ then you’re probably going to be let down regularly.” Plus, he has hope. He watched Phil Mickelson win the US PGA Championship in May, and he loved it, because Mickelson is 50 years old and still playing golf. “I find that unbelievably inspirational.” His eyes sparkle.

Murray is a combination of realism and sky-high expectations. When it comes down to it, he still wants to win. “Well, yes, I want to win Wimbledon,” he says. “And yes, I would like to be No 1 in the world.” But that’s not it, not really. Sport is transformative. It has the power to make you feel like a child again, to bring you completely into the moment, to forget everything except what you’re going to do in the next second. And who, after his past few years, would deny Murray that? “At the core of it, I love tennis,” he says. “If you love doing something, why would you stop just because you’re not doing it as well as you once did? Yes, criticise my performances and tell me I’m rubbish, that’s fine. But I’ll keep going until I can’t any more, because this is what I love.”

Andy Murray’s Wimbledon kit is made by AMC and The Woolmark Company.