Andy Murray says he was putting ‘on a front’ to hide the fact he was struggling to deal with the pain from a chronic hip injury. Today sees the release of Murray’s feature-length documentary ‘Andy Murray: Resurfacing’ which charts his time, largely off the court, as he recovered from two hip operations. After surgery in January 2018 failed to ease the pain for Murray, the film shows him arriving at the Australian Open this year ready to announce his intention to retire from the sport at Wimbledon.
Before his first-round match against Roberto Bautista Agut, Murray was ready to tell the media about his struggles but broke down in tears as the moment got the better of him.
Speaking at the screening of the documentary, Murray opened up about the emotions he was through prior to the press conference.
He said: “Up until that point when I had been asked [about the injury], my closest family, friends and my team knew I was really struggling.
“As a professional athlete when you turn up at tournaments, for example, you get asked by the media or fellow players and coaches ‘how is your hip doing’.
“I’m not going to say to someone that I might be playing the following day that ‘my hip feels terrible. I can’t run to my forehand and can’t serve’ because I might play them the next day.
JUST IN Stefanos Tsitsipas sends cheeky message to Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer
“So you are always putting on a bit of a front and a brave face to sort of say ‘I’m doing a little bit better and hip is feeling good’.
“But that wasn’t actually the case and in Australia that was sort of the first time, I had opened up to everyone and said how much I have been struggling and how I was feeling.
“And that was a really important moment for me because the support and everything from the tennis community was amazing. [It] helped a lot in that period and I needed it.”
Murray would eventually tell the media that he was considering the possibility of further surgery, which he ultimately underwent a few days after his defeat in five sets to Bautista Agut.
“I was so emotional. But I didn’t think I had said I’m retiring. I think I’d said I would like to get to Wimbledon to stop and at the time that was my plan.
“I didn’t want to play any longer than that because I couldn’t do it anymore.
“I can’t remember exactly what was in the video but it was obviously a tricky moment for Mark Petchey as well. I had said to my team and my family that if it is the end, that’s fine.
“That would have been an amazing way to finish. Brilliant atmosphere, packed crowd, epic match, almost came back and I was like ‘that is fine’.
“If I had to finish there I would have been OK with it.”
Andy Murray was speaking at the screening of his new documentary ‘Andy Murray: Resurfacing’ which is out now on Amazon Prime Video.