Louis Wise on Andy Murray's comeback

There’s room for me and Andy Murray on Centre Court, says Louis Wise
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Louis Wise16 May 2019

Is anyone else finding Andy Murray’s stagger to the finishing line painful?

It puts that lady in the marathon — the one who hauled herself over the line on her hands and knees — to shame. The tennis star very nearly retired in January, but now hasn’t and is threatening to play Wimbledon. Apparently he’s feeling fine since having his hip ‘resurfaced’. To be honest, I thought resurfacing was something you did to your patio, but then there’s something very patio about Murray: practical, hard-wearing, hardly stylish, but you’re somehow grateful for it come the summer. Anyway, he’s coming back, he thinks, and every time I read about it, weirdly, I cringe.

Why am I being like this? Who am I to tell a world-class athlete when to stop? The man is an actual knight, and an Olympic champion. If anyone’s earned the right to say bye his own way, it’s him. On reflection, though, my attitude has, of course, nothing to do with him and all to do with my own desperate dreams and delusions, just as nearly every man’s take on sport does.

“The gap between the real me and  the fantasy me was too great”

Louis Wise

Tennis is my game. It doesn’t matter that millions of other people love it, and that 92 per cent of them are better at playing it. It’s mine. It’s a love, though, that brooks no flaws or failures, which explains why I’ve barely played it since I was a child. The gap between the real me and the fantasy me was too great. In my mind, I’m a supple, subtle player. Someone who’d never win a Grand Slam, sure, but would certainly be a local league legend (I tailor my crackpot schemes to scale). In reality: it’s a serve that’s mostly a suggestion, a backhand that’s painfully overwrought and a forehand that’s ‘all-conquering’, in that it conquers every corner of the park.

Age has a humbling quality, though, and finally I’ve bored of this determined perfectionism. I’ve realised it was basically fear. I’ve started taking lessons again, and I’m beginning to accept, begrudgingly, the small charms of a little realism. It’s okay if I shank the odd shot into the garden; it’s okay if my grunt is still a sub-Seles squeak. It’s better to try anything, surely, than to not try at all, which is why I also know I should accept Murray’s exit strategy. And after all, who knows? Could a new champion be waiting in the wings? We already have the swearing in common.

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