Over the past week at the Australian Open in Melbourne Sir Andy Murray has often seemed more like a medieval knight than a tennis player, undergoing the kinds of physical trials and feats of endurance that were the stuff of chivalric romances. He’s even carried a war wound from previous campaigns, a metal plate that supports a damaged hip. But in the end, despite a heroic effort on Saturday, he couldn’t quite slay the dragon – or at least his third-round opponent, Roberto Bautista Agut.
To have done so, he would have had to rewrite not just courtly literature but the record books. No one had ever played more than nine hours in the first two matches of a tennis tournament and gone on to win their third match. Murray played for a combined 10 hours and 34 minutes to beat Matteo Berrettini and Thanasi Kokkinakis in two epic five-setters.
You could fly to LA in that time or watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy and still have room spare for an episode of Break Point, the new Netflix series that follows the next generation of tennis players. It’s full of slick images and hot-looking people that seem more attuned to the world of selfies and social media than the dogged old-school ways of Murray.
Never can he have felt as old as he must have done on Saturday. Although he was running on fumes, the one defining characteristic of the Scotsman’s phenomenal career is that he doesn’t know when he’s defeated. He holds the record for the most comebacks from two sets down – a feat he’s achieved a remarkable 11 times. And no other tennis player has ever returned to the top flight after the hip resurfacing operation that he underwent in 2019.
2 days ago I randomly bumped into the doctor who in 2017 told me “the good news is the problem you have in your hip can be fixed but you won’t be able to play professional sport again.” I think we dispelled that myth the last 5 days.😉Goodnight ❤️
— Andy Murray (@andy_murray) January 21, 2023
After the match, he tweeted: “2 days ago I randomly bumped into the doctor who in 2017 told me ‘the good news is the problem you have in your hip can be fixed but you won’t be able to play professional sport again.’ I think we dispelled that myth the last 5 days.”
But even heroes have their limits. Before a ball was hit Murray looked very much like anyone else who had finished their previous shift at 4am: shattered. It was no surprise that Bautista Agut ran away with the first set 6-1. The logic-defying thing is that Murray claimed the second.
Despite his many successes, the Scotsman has always divided opinion. One reason is his sporting demeanour. He tends to look sluggish between points, dragging his feet around the baseline like a teenager told to clean his room. But on Saturday he also appeared stiff and hobbled, like a man who’d been force-marched across the Sahara in the wrong-sized shoes.
It’s during points, though, that Murray undergoes some kind of miraculous transformation, turning from a broken shell into an elite athlete capable of the most breathtaking tennis shots. He has a well-earned reputation as one of the great returners in the game, but more than that he is arguably the best ever retriever of the ball, someone who comes explosively alive when the cause is all but lost.
ANDY MURRAY YOU ARE KIDDING! 😱 That is some of the BEST defense you will EVER see! 🛡️
— Wide World of Sports (@wwos) January 19, 2023
🖥️ #AusOpen LIVE | https://t.co/KfWgfBbqFo#9WWOS #Tennis pic.twitter.com/UFiQjBcrQd
A sequence he played against Kokkinakis has already become a social media sensation – somehow, dashing about so deep in the court he was almost an audience member, he managed to fend off three overhead smashes to snatch a point he had absolutely no right to win.
Last week he said that while he often looks fed up on court, it’s actually when he is at his happiest “inside”. The Dunblane survivor who left home at 16 to play tennis in Barcelona has long found emotional release in a game he has been desperate to keep playing. Four years ago he was in tears at the Australian Open when it seemed as if he’d completed his last professional match, another epic five-setter, in a defeat, once again, to Bautista Agut.
So he wasn’t prepared to leave the stage this time round any sooner than strictly necessary. Murray knew that he had to bust a gut to best Agut. The last thing he needed was extended rallies, but that’s exactly what he got, with scarcely a point being settled before 15, 20 or 25 shots had been played.
The more it hurt, the deeper Murray dug. As he chased down the Spaniard’s clinically placed shots, he emitted yelps of alarm, like a man who rushes into the kitchen to put out a fire, only to realise that the loft is ablaze. But put out the fires he did and, playing some of the finest tennis he’s played in years, he almost took the match to five sets, before losing in four.
That might sound like a familiar story of a plucky British defeat. But Murray is a born winner and to do what he’s done in the past few days stands alongside some of his greatest achievements – and remember he has won three grand slams, two Olympic golds and become world number one in an era that boasted the three greatest men’s players who have ever picked up a tennis racket.
It’s unlikely he’ll ever return to those heights again, but he has given his fans many imperishable memories – not least in the extraordinary swan song of the past week.
