Murray comeback at Wimbledon: winner of the pain

So many days when the pain brought tears to his eyes; so many days full of doubts whether he could continue to put up with the agony for himself and his family; black hours in the sick bed, nightmares in broad daylight. No, it was not a matter of life or death for Andy Murray as it was for his Spanish colleague Carla Suárez Navarro, who announced a few weeks ago, to the great joy and relief of the tennis world, that she had survived Hodgkin lymphoma, a malignant disease, and it was fit enough to say goodbye to tournaments all over the world. No, Murray played with a metal plate in his right hip joint after two operations, and his life was never in danger, but nevertheless the Scot often enough had the feeling that an enemy lived inside his body.

The Scottish Wimbledon winner's forced break between the quarter-finals in 2017 and the first round in 2021 on the green Center Court in singles lasted four years, and in the middle of this time he announced his resignation. "I can't stand the pain anymore," he said at a press conference shortly before the start of the Australian Open in Melbourne two years ago with tears. "I really tried everything to make things right, but it didn't work."

Shortly afterwards, he had his hip operated on for the second time and was at least good enough on his feet to play doubles and mixed games with Serena Williams at Wimbledon six months later. At the US Open last year he survived a game in five sets in the first round, but was barely able to run the day after. And in Paris a few weeks later he lost so clearly in round one against Swiss Stan Wawrinka that he had to justify himself afterwards for why he was still doing all this to himself.

But Sir Andrew Barron Murray answered this question in his own way on his return to the hallowed halls; it was a remarkable, exciting ride through the terrain. For two and a half sentences he moved in the evening light against Nikolos Basilashvili, who was in 28th position in the world, almost like at the best of times; when he led 6: 4, 6: 4, 5: 0, the audience was already preparing for the celebrations after the match point.

But then Murray suddenly no longer served well and received a break, a little later a second, missed two match points when the score was 5: 3 and wriggled in the middle of the thorny bushes.

He didn't win a game in this set, the Georgian on the other side no longer seemed inhibited and nervous, Murray himself, however, all the more.

One of the things he missed most, he had recently said, was the pressure in tricky situations;

the feeling of having your back to the wall.

The Center Court shook

There it was, that essential feeling. The roof over Center Court was closed, both players took advantage of the break to go to the locker room, and many things went on Murray's mind. He couldn't remember ever losing a sentence after such a clear lead, and he had an inkling of what the headlines would be like the next day if he lost that thing. He messed it up, one of the worst losses of his career, and so on.

But he recovered, kept the doubts in check and opened the way out of the thorny bushes again. With the fourth match point at just before ten o'clock in the evening he won the game, the center court shook, and a happy wife rose in the stands; Mrs. Murray, Kim Sears, who had given birth to their fourth child in six years that spring, shone like a young day. Typically Murray, by the way, that the public did not find out for weeks whether the newest offspring was a girl or a boy.

He doesn't think there are too many players who would have won this fourth set in his position, the winner said afterwards. Many would have probably surrendered after losing seven games in the third set, but he was proud to have achieved the opposite. And while he was still on the lawn, he gave the people a message that might answer a few basic considerations. "I'm always asked whether this is my last Wimbledon or the last game," he said in a slightly shaky voice. "No. I want to play, I enjoy it and I can still play at the highest level. He's number 28 in the world, I've played little lately, and yet I beat him. I will continue."

Let's see how things go on, whether he will feel the consequences of the exciting evening in his bones as he did in New York when he could barely put one foot in front of the other in the second round. But that first night of the Championships was one of those nights he'd imagined waking up with a metal plate on his right hip after the second operation.