There was a moment of tranquillity after the tumult for Andy Murray as speculation swirled around Melbourne Park about where he would go from here, in what capacity and what state of mind.
Gone midnight, a few hours after losing as bravely as he ever has done – in five sets to Robert Bautista Agut in the first round of the Australian Open – Murray crept on to the unattended Rod Laver Arena, where he had lost five finals, and took out the camera on his phone. He swung it around, to no obvious end, and brought it back to settle on his sad features. He has rarely looked so sad. He lifted his right hand and, silently, waved goodbye.
It was as clear an indication as any that Murray is done with tennis after 14 years, 853 matches, 45 titles, among them three majors, two Olympic gold medals, one Davis Cup, one knighthood and the love of millions. He might yet return, but the odds are long. A little later, he matter-of-factly laid out the options facing him if he is to conjure up a farewell at Wimbledon this summer.
“I would definitely play Wimbledon if I didn’t have the operation,” he said of a top-surface procedure that has saved the career of the American doubles player Bob Bryan, “because my hip isn’t going to be much worse off after tonight.
“My hip is screwed anyway so it’s not like tonight’s match is going to make it any worse than what it is. So, if I took a few months off and didn’t play, I could definitely get myself on the court to play Wimbledon one last time. I could be competitive. I was competitive here against a top player with very little practice and matches. Grass is a better surface for me.”
Pointedly, he calls that “option B”. It became clear his first choice is to bite down and go under the knife, not to extend his career but to be able to put on his socks and shoes, as he memorably put it.
“Option B gives me the best chance of playing at Wimbledon. The first option makes my life a lot more comfortable and enjoyable, but potentially means I never play again and also miss Wimbledon. So that’s what I need to decide.”
And which was favourite?
“After tonight, probably to have the operation, because if that was my last match … If I’d got smoked tonight, I would have been, like, ‘Shit, I don’t want that to be the last match that I play.’ But, because of the way the match went and how I finished, I literally couldn’t have done any more than what I did. That was my maximum. My hip was completely gone at the end of the match.
“It was an amazing atmosphere, it was brilliant. So that would be a nice way to finish as well. I would be able to deal with that being my last match OK … I think.”
Unsurprisingly, the avalanche of nice words that descended upon him afterwards, from the packed Melbourne Arena to the galaxy of peers who posted their praise on the big screen, caught him off-guard.
“I know there’s lots of tennis fans and British fans who would be sad about it, but I didn’t expect people to be really upset. That’s a bit embarrassing when you encounter that.”
Murray will leave tennis immensely enhanced. He brought courts all around the world to life with his peculiar mixture of sweary belligerence and vulnerability. But he says British tennis did not make the most of his achievements, with which there will be little argument.
“We’ve obviously got a few players here, Kyle [Edmund], Cam Norrie, Dan Evans, Harriet Dart, Jo [Konta], Heather [Watson], Katie Boulter. So there are quite a few players coming through that have potential to go on and do better, but obviously you are talking about the high end of the game.
“To get eight Brits in the main draw, that is a decent number. It’s not amazing but it’s a decent number. The thing that is more concerning, from my understanding, is that participation is dropping. I know in Scotland that there have not been many indoor courts built in the last 10 years. That seems madness. I don’t understand why that is.
“I guess those are the things that are important for the future. You need to get kids playing, you need to have the facilities that allow them to do that and I am not sure Britain has really capitalised on the last seven or eight years of success that we’ve had really, whether it be myself, my brother Jamie, Jo, Kyle, Davis Cup, those sorts of things.”
As generous as he is to his contemporaries, Murray did most of it himself. Yet he reveals it was never his intention to be a star, to go on from his childhood in Dunblane and conquer the tennis world.
“I never had any dreams like that,” he says. “I saw an interview that I did when I was 14 on the BBC. I just wanted to be a professional tennis player. I wanted to get to the top 100 in the world. When I moved over to Spain [at 15], that was what I was trying to do. I was not thinking about winning Wimbledon. I didn’t think that was ever going to be possible. I never had those dreams or ambitions when I was a kid.”
But his talent would not be denied. When Murray won his first title on the full ATP Tour, in San Jose in 2006, his opponent in the final was Lleyton Hewitt who, against all odds, could play Jamie in the second round of the doubles here this week as a wildcard.
Murray was 18 that day; Hewitt four years earlier had become the youngest world No 1 since Ellsworth Vines in 1932.
Murray, now on the verge of retirement, turns 32 in May, while Hewitt – who has had at least as many operations as the Scot – will be 38. He is still dragging his old bones around the circuit, angering Bernard Tomic to the point of incomprehensible gibbering here this week.
What Tomic does not comprehend is that the cycle of survival, triumph and despair in tennis respects no age, no reputation. Few have the luxury of choosing the point of their departure. Murray is at that door now, and still undecided when to walk through it. When he does, unlike Hewitt, he will close it for good.