18 months of discomfort and still manages to win Wimbledon.

With the recent knowledge that Murray has been through quite a few months in pain, and is now on the mend after back surgery to remove some annoying bone fragments, it seems incredible that he found a way to survive two weeks of intense tennis to win Wimbledon this year. In fact, although it may well go some way to explain some of his terrible losses, it may illustrate why he has been riding a huge wave of crest and shallow ebbs and flows.

In the aftermath of a recuperation period (that is still ongoing), what will his style of play produce with a back free of restraint and discomfort. Will his forehand become stronger, flatter and more consistent, will his backhand regain its sting, and the all important 1st serve, will it become heavier and accelerate more into the lines, or will nothing change beyond a reminiscent composure of his former youthfulness ?

I would love to see how the rejuvenated Nadal will hold up against a properly fit and fully firing Murray, this may well be the ultimate test for Andy as he picks the tournament to come back, confronting the player who has beaten all the odds and made a remarkable recovery back to and better than his former self.

I thought a few months back that 2014 was going to be just another Murray/Djoko slug fest, but now that seems to be less than half the story, I'm sure we'll see the usual high standard of fighting cocks in the arena from those two when they meet, but the real matchup is going to be the Rafa/Andy contests, if Murray can really profit from his prolonged haitus and put all memories of niggling injuries and constant pain into the distant past.

Could be a good year for tennis fans.

Nadal came back gingerly and was on clay for a bit to get used to it and came close to unexpected losses and then some. The expectations should be tempered in Murray's case as well. I also hope that such issues do not flare up again for Murray.

Even though clay is not his favorite, it may be better for him to start with Clay to ease the strain on his back, that, otherwise, can be put on by HC/Grass.

Murray would be wise to show up for a grass court for Wimbledon and start his season there. He could injure himself coming back too early in the early hard court season, and clay is a waste for him anyway so might as well give him extra time to recoup his body an the new muscles.

The shot i have felt has pooked significantly inhibited this year is the backhand. If he is pain free I would expect him to be hitting that shot with more power. Other than that, I wouldn't expect much improvement - just a bit more consistency. Of course, there is no guarantee he will be completely healed.

It would be madness for him to return on clay. This myth that clay is somehow easier on the body is totally wrong. Its extremely tough to play on clay and the last two years have shown that Andy's back has flared up more on that surface. He's talking about playing an exho at end Nov so hopefully he is on track to return in Australia.

Is that what the surgery was, to remove bone fragments? They've tried to keep it secret about what it actually was. How did you hear this?

We don't know how much the pain inhibited his game. He won 2 slams during the time he talks about, so I can only assume it comes and goes. He may come back less inhibited and benefit from it. He may never be as good a player again of course, back surgery is no small thing. Hopefully that's not the case though.

He normally does well in Melbourne, though I guess that might be a bit beyond him this time. If and when he does get back to his best I can't wait to see Rafa v Murray.

The unavoidable fact is that the times the injury really flared up was on clay. In successive seasons on clay the injury was aggravated or at least at its most evident. I always felt it was due to the action he has to use to impart extra pace on the ball as the court speed of clay is so slow.

Here is hoping he can come back all guns blazing but I cannot deny I have my doubts.

Born Slippy wrote:It would be madness for him to return on clay. This myth that clay is somehow easier on the body is totally wrong. Its extremely tough to play on clay and the last two years have shown that Andy's back has flared up more on that surface.

The challenge with either view is this. Clay is tough on your body, if the style of play is just endless defence, and hitting topspin FHs forever or endless rallys.

Recall Federer chose to play Gstaad, Hamburg, while Nadal chose The Golden swing.

laverfan wrote:

Born Slippy wrote:It would be madness for him to return on clay. This myth that clay is somehow easier on the body is totally wrong. Its extremely tough to play on clay and the last two years have shown that Andy's back has flared up more on that surface.

The challenge with either view is this. Clay is tough on your body, if the style of play is just endless defence, and hitting topspin FHs forever or endless rallys.

Recall Federer chose to play Gstaad, Hamburg, while Nadal chose The Golden swing.

You can get the most aggressive player out there and they will still have to work harder to win on clay than on any other surface. Its slightly easier on the knees than hard (although its notable that Rafa's two long injury breaks have come after RG) but someone with a back issue isn't going to want to play a surface where they will probably have to play morepoints on serve and where the court surface can be a little bit slippery.

Danny_1982 wrote:Is that what the surgery was, to remove bone fragments? They've tried to keep it secret about what it actually was. How did you hear this?

A bit of guesswork Danny, taking into account he has verified it has nothing to do with a disc, it certainly can't be tendon related so all that is left is either cartilage or spinal skeletal removal. Hence bone fragments, but that can mean anything from broken to abnormal build up of calcified injury residue.

I also think that back pain is closely related to muscle spasm which is the bodies way of safeguarding further damage to the area, be it nerve, tendon or bone stress related injuries. He has stated that prolonged physiotherapy has not made the injury any better, so I've ruled out muscle or tendon tears as they tend to mend over time and therapy, and can only see it as a nerve and or spinal/cartilage problem, hence the keyhole surgery he has undergone.

But don't take my word for it !

**EDIT**

Well, the sacrum (base of the spine) is not held or cushioned by cartilage in situ with the hip bones (ilium), but begins to fuse together from age 15 to 30. My mistake, so if its not disc related then cartilage is not the problem I suppose. When he has pain, he does hold the outside of his hip, around the lumbar region of the spine, so nerve root endings may be causing a problem, but surgery ? ... when I ruled out tendon, I forgot that there are more ligaments on the inside of the spine than outside, they are not accessible through physiotherapy, they may be the cause. But again...surgery ?
I am tending to lean more on calcium build up now, through repeated injury or inflammation of a joint. That would require surgery to remove bits and restructure a joint so it doesn't grind away. Still makes it a spinal problem for me, but its pure conjecture of course. Interesting researching it though.

Murray has never been comfortable on clay, even though his Spanish training revolved around clay, most of it was taken up being coached on Hard court.

I also think that the red stuff is not kind to the lower back, especially holding an injury down there and the fact that Murray has to play his double handed backhand a lot earlier and lower than usual to get the same result or later which is harder for him to time. but to train on.....? that might be a different kettle of fish as the surface is forgiving in the stop and start department.

It took a long time to see Del Po firing back to his best, in comparison Rafa healed so quick to be back to his best, in Muzza's case anything might happen, I like many would be happy to see him start back on grass season at queens. He can practice before that on grass and hence he could be in top notch form for queens and take that form to Wimbledon.

Murray has said he won't come back in Melbourne if he feels he has no chance of winning it. I, for one actually agree with this. If it doesn't feel right, wait it out. You already have the slam. Would raise an interesting conundrum as to when he actually does come back, and whether that has an influence on his ranking? With Nadal, because he is so dominant on clay, he could take June to April off and still fall somewhere in the 5-8 bracket. How does Murray's ranking handle time off from, say Shanghai to Wimbledon? Or more likely (though obviously just theoretical) Shanghai to Indian Wells? The Wimbledon win means he should stay top 16ish no matter when he comes back (before Wimbledon).

all this is hearsay of course, and I think he will be back for Melbourne, but I have no idea of how serious the procedure was, just interesting to note when he could come back, if he does miss the first Grand Slam of the year - an occurrence which will undoubtedly send Australian back to the bad old days when no body worth mentioning attended AO (given that Nadal missed out last year)

I think he'll be back in Australia. He is hitting balls over the next week or so which indicates to me he's on track for his December training drill in Miami.

The 2 big questions are will this surgery have worked and got rid of the pain? And after such a surgery - remembering that we don't know how serious the surgery was - will he ever be the same player again?

Hopefully both will be a yes. But we just don't know.

Considering he was up and about a few days after the operation would suggest it wasnt an intensive one. He did announce it was " minor back surgery" and there was this to be said from a Dr Angus Hunter...

"(Dr Angus Hunter) senior lecturer in exercise physiology at Stirling University’s sports school, said Murray’s rapid physical development could be part of his problem. He said: “Andy has developed himself quite dramatically over the past few years so his muscle structure has adapted. But sometimes when you have these changes, working at optimum level, the body is being pushed so much that some areas become too tight or there might be some neural-­impingement, when this happens, the problem has to be dealt with.”

I wonder if Virginia Wade is eating humble pie now that Andy's dying swan and drama Queen act was not so theatrical after all.

Andy Murray wrote: "I hope I'll be able to play better than before because for a couple of years there's been shots that I couldn't hit any more. I couldn't play the shots because it was too painful and because I couldn't generate the power. So, providing the surgery has gone well, it should help me and allow me to play the strokes I want to play and not have to play sort of managing an issue. So that's exciting for me. If I watch videos of when I was playing five years ago, six years ago, there's some shots that I was like 'ahhhh'. I was saying earlier in the year, 'I'd love to be able to do that' and I couldn't any more. So I'm hoping that'll help.

Must be referring to his backhand here. The rapier cross-court shot has been more or less missing for a couple of years. If things have gone well, I'm genuinely excited about what we might see from Andy for the next couple of years.

That's very interesting BS, he didn't play certain shots anymore because it was too painful to generate the power... Yeah he must be on about his backhand side because he does hit through the forehand fairly well nowadays.

So Murray could be unleashed a little bit in 2014. He has a coach who desperately wants him to attack more and he'll hopefully have no pain holding him back. Could be fun to watch.

To think he won the USO and Wimbledon with a game being managed to contain the pain is remarkable and a sterling statement to his powers of determination.

I wonder if the back operation might awaken the sleeping dragon that has been simmering the last couple of years.

He was on Jonathan Ross last night, and said the operation was to shave a bit of bone off. Didn't give much else away, but that sounds a bit more than a 'minor' op.

He's off to Miami tomorrow though to up his training, so he should be on course to make Melbourne.

Interesting he has entered Acapulco this year, which suggests he is planning on playing a much fuller schedule than last year. To use one of HE's favourite phrases, he was basically a "part time" player last year. Either that's a good sign of confidence that the back is going to be stronger or it's a fall back in case he isn't fully competitive in Oz.

Pretty certain that Andy's got a few aces (sorry about the pun!!!) up his sleeve. To me it's positive that's he's talking like a Champion about the game (drugs / The O2 etc) and happy to discuss his progress

I have no doubt that he expects to come back better and giving it his all for the next three years

Not certain if he'll risk the Aus

I'm pretty certain he'll be there in Melbourne banbro. He's flying to Miami to start training tomorrow, that's 3 weeks earlier than usual. I'm sure it'll be light to begin with, but that's a schedule of a man targeting winning the AO to me.

He was very positive on the Jonathan Ross show, about his back and his comeback. Has kinda eased my fears.