MALAGA — Andy Murray was looking forward to a “lads’ holiday to Spain” when he helped Great Britain into the quarter-finals of the Davis Cup.
It is a sad irony that both players in the picture he used to accompany that tongue-in-cheek remark on Instagram are not fit to play: he himself has a minor shoulder injury and Dan Evans, the British No 1, has damaged his calf.
Evans is still here, coming out as a fan with his wife Aleah, while his father was already planning the trip even before his son got injured. Murray has stayed away though, revealing he has been filming a BBC Christmas cooking special with Mary Berry called Highland Christmas at the Cromlix Hotel he part-owns.
Given Murray’s passion for the Davis Cup – he carried the team on his back when they won back in 2015 and has only lost three of his 36 national team singles ties – you might expect him to be here in Malaga, especially since Evans is not the only stricken star who has made the trip despite physical struggles.
Italy’s Matteo Berrettini has not played since retiring injured from the US Open second round. It was his fourth injury-related withdrawal of the year and he admitted that the pain of not being involved for the Davis Cup Finals is as bad as the pain his body experiences.
“I was really sad,” Berrettini said, explaining that this latest time out had been far more challenging than previous absences.
“Unfortunately I had many injuries, but I always found [a kind of joy in] the challenge of coming back and feeling kind of like, ‘Okay, now I put the work in’.
“And I wasn’t feeling that. When I was feeling something on my body, I was really struggling. I went down. Mentally I wasn’t ready to face the challenge.”
It is a hard thing to hear from a player who was a Wimbledon finalist only two years ago and whose huge serve powered him into the top 10.
Murray has also talked about enjoying the process of coming back from injury, a lifelong sucker for hard work and grit. His fitness sessions in the heat and humidity of Miami are legendary and the fly-on-the-wall documentary Resurfacing, about his hip surgery and subsequent comeback, is a testament to how much he loves being a tennis player.
That will make it all the more painful that he cannot be here trying to win one more trophy for Great Britain, having missed his grandmother’s funeral to play in the group stages back in September.
Opportunities to represent his country, and as importantly win something for it, are running out. Murray’s career has at best a couple of years left in it. A bad-tempered end to a difficult 2023 season saw him part with long-time coach Ivan Lendl for a third time and his injury means he will not have as much chance to do off-season technical work with Louis Cayer, the LTA’s senior performance adviser, whom Murray has been leaning on for advice in recent weeks.
Cayer is instead out in Malaga to work with Neal Skupski and Joe Salisbury, Britain’s two elite doubles specialists, whose form could be crucial to Britain’s efforts.
Against Serbia, Novak Djokovic is unlikely to lose to Norrie and in-form Jack Draper is favoured against whoever the Serbs put up – and will be against most No 2 singles players if GB progress.
That means Skupski and Salisbury will find themselves, more than probably, in a deciding match against Djokovic in a format that is very much their turf rather than his.
“He doesn’t play that much doubles, but he’s probably the best player ever to hold a tennis racquet,” said Salisbury, summing things up with typical brevity.
By the same token, Murray could have brought much to the doubles arena, and might also have seen it as a chance to form a partnership that he could reunite next summer.
Murray, a two-time Olympic gold medallist, is expected to play at Paris 2024 in some form, but his slump in singles could make it difficult for GB to squeeze him into the team. Instead, he may end up playing doubles with either Skupski or Salisbury, in one last dance for golden glory.
Last might not be totally accurate: he is unlikely to want to end his professional career, which many predict will be over in 2024, on his hated clay. The positioning of the Olympics in the calendar in July is awkward, as it means he cannot have his retirement party at Wimbledon – although it could be the beginning of a long goodbye.
Instead, there is smart money on the US Open 2024 being his last grand slam – and after that is the Davis Cup group stages and perhaps the finals. After having his shot this year taken out of his hands, that might be a chance too good to resist.