Andy Murray may miss Wimbledon and Olympics as hip issue lingers
- Former world No 1 may need further hip surgery
- ‘I have become quite pessimistic about time frames’
Andy Murray admits his career is still hanging by a thread, as he contemplates either returning to the Tour in Miami next month or having another operation to clear up worrying complications around his repaired right hip.
Surgery, however minor, could rule him out of Wimbledon and the Olympics, and might even convince him to retire after 15 years on the Tour. He sounded alternately upbeat and pessimistic in a long conversation on Tuesday night, and said: “I do want to keep playing. Whether I’m able to or not is the question.”
Murray has not played since November, when he beat the Dutch world No 179, Tallon Griekspoor, in three gruelling sets in
Great Britain’s first match of the reformatted Davis Cup finals in Madrid. After soaking up 23 aces in nearly three hours, he was treated for bruising to the pubic bone. That, though, might be the least of his problems.
“At the Davis Cup the bone bruise was causing the soft tissue and everything around to stiffen up and spasm,” he explained. “Once that’s gone, maybe the other issue [bone growth in tissue near his hip] is not too bad. It’s been unbelievably complex, challenging and difficult because it is not easy to get answers.” Murray spoke with deep medical understanding and no little frustration about the physical problems that have gathered since he returned from an 11-day break that followed his
comeback win in Antwerp in late October – his first tournament victory in two-and-a-half years.
“There is something called heterotopic ossification,” he says, “which is bone growing outside of the normal skeleton; it grows in soft tissues. That grows for 14 to 16 months post-surgery and can cause impingements, pain, aching. That might be causing the issue. [But] if you try to remove that while it is still active in the process of growing, it grows straight back.
“What I need to do is build up in these next couple of weeks to really test it. I will really test the hip out. Hopefully it responds fine. But if it doesn’t then I need to potentially have that removed.
“I can’t have it removed until it is finished growing. I am now pretty much at 13 months since the operation last January, so I would hope in this period while I am building up and trying to basically test it out, I should know by the end of next month whether I’m good to play or not with it.
“If they can’t get to it with an arthroscope, I would have to be opened up again. That takes longer to recover. It’s not like a major operation to have it removed but, if they cannot get there with an arthroscope to remove it, that is the issue.”
Murray is back hitting on court, and happy with initial progress. “If you watch my session today, I’m fine. But there’s a difference between what I’m doing today and playing high-level tennis.”
If all goes well, Murray says he could be back playing within four weeks. “Maybe Miami [which starts on 25 March]. There’s no reason not to, because I don’t have an injury as such. If this is what the issue is, then it’s a calcification, an impingement. It’s whether that settles with time and the body gets used to it and whether I’m able to manage it when playing.”
It is clear that three months short of his 33rd birthday, the hunger is still there. “Missing the Australian Open for me this year was rough. At the end of last season I was starting to play pretty well, I was feeling good, and then this happened. At Davis Cup, I was not anticipating that it might be an issue, I was not thinking that I was going to be missing Australia.
“I want to get back to playing in the slams. That’s what excites me and interests me. There is no reason why I can’t. The thing for me that would be tough is if I would have to go ahead and have something done about this. It’s not that long an operation really in terms of the rehab and stuff. But, if I wasn’t able to have it until May or whatever, with six to eight weeks rehab, then that would mean missing that period. Hopefully the activity around this heterotopic ossification settles down.
“From chatting about it, I feel it’s really negative. The negative thing for me would be if something really bad was wrong with the prosthesis. For my team and everyone around me, the concern would be if something happened to that.
“But there hasn’t been any problem with that at all. This is something which is extremely common in hip resurfacing, a traumatic kind of injury. A lot of the military get this ossification. If I have to have that removed because it is what is causing the problem, then that is a pain in the arse.
“I might be playing in the next few weeks – that’s what I hope – but, over the last couple of years, I have become quite pessimistic about time frames, issues and stuff because of what has gone on, and what has been said to me. I don’t want to say I will definitely be in Miami playing. There is also the possibility I might have to have something done. We’ll just have to see.”
amp.theguardian.com
I miss seeing him play.
