Andy Murray and Purple Yellow Walls

It was with a sigh that Andy Murray exited Melbourne Park yesterday. Talk pre-tournament had been of his wizardry here last year, back-to-back monstrous 5 setters that shook us all silly with memories of what this man produced when he was dominant and my word, we loved that, didn’t we? Nostalgia sickened us all but promised us nothing and it truly delivered on that.

Unwelcome endings are never pleasant but sometimes they’re necessary to help us recognise where we’re really at and as Murray sat in his post-match first round press conference, it appeared he was reckoning with his present place in this sport. The focus naturally will be on his words, his wayward it-could-well-be responses to nipping queries in regards to whether this’ll be his last outting as a professional player in Australia. But for me, it was his struggle to locate what he was really looking to say that hit this all home. It was as though the gravity of it was simply incomprehensible in its reality. This listlessness was a far-cry from the fine-tuned analytical brain we used to see from him following a loss. This, it would appear, was always going to happen and there wasn’t really a thing he could have done about it.

The loss of all control over what happens in his matches might finally be what pushes Murray across the void that he’s been wading in for awhile now. Floating around, trying to form some semblance of structure, he’s instead just wrapped himself in an unpleasant repetitive nature of tournament buildup, tournament exit. It’s been ugly, walls painted purple and yellow. Murray’s pretty much copyrighted that grinding scowl that forces its way across his face as he fights. But even that’s been absent of late, replaced with flat self-acceptance of yet another week gone. If it’s not that, it’s the opposite, rage justified only in that it’s there and has nowhere else to go, no longer channelable in hunt for a higher gear. Stuck in fourth looking for non-existent fifth. Over and over. Screaming into the oncoming wreck of defeat.

Murray said at the end of last year that he’d lost his enjoyment of tennis. The off-season, it would appear, has offered no indication that it will return. He seems to totally understand the process of his career at the moment that when the familiar issues arise, he faces them with near-placid awareness that this is just how things go when you’re near the end. You lose and then you lose again and then one more for good measure. Following this latest exit, Laura Robson – Murray’s Olympic mixed silver medalist partner from back in 2012 – offered him encouragement, maintaining that she believed that he had more to give. His immediate reply?

“Do I?”

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I first became a fan of Murray because I found him relatable, his inner-child tantruming its way through his tennis and holding my hand as I struggled to understand the world. He was stupid at times, letting it take too much from him and driving him off cliffs. But he always went out there with every ounce of all that he had that day. He’s still doing that now, only these days aren’t those days and nothing changes everything quite like time.

It’s rough amongst the ticket stubs and apple cores of long gone events. The growing pains of late-stage professional tennis take the form only of preparation for life without it. Murray’s been just making sure for years now, determined to finish up knowing that beyond all else that he really fucking tried. If his career is to be defined by the fact that he always stood up to be counted when the big moments came, I think he’ll take that. It can be cold realising you’re empty but for Murray, there’ll be relief. No regrets for the man who retired once and came back to double-check.

Whenever he does formally announce it, it’ll be for the final time and I’ll cry. Oh my god, will I fucking cry for the absence of a man that doesn’t know I exist. But I’ll know this time that he knows it’s time and that he made a second chance out of impossible. And so we wait for this soon. But still. We wait. Not. Quite. Yet.

Sometimes we play to win Wimbledon and sometimes we play just to see how long we can play. Andy Murray – defeated, near the end, a little lost – is still playing. And so we wait.