Cape Town - In his latest statement, three-time Grand Slam winner Andy Murray revealed he may be forced to go under the knife once again.
Murray has not played since winning a Davis Cup match for Great Britain last November, as he was forced to pull out of the Australian Open and the lack of news on his potential return has fuelled concerns that he might have played the final match of his glittering career.
After a miraculous recovery from a hip resurfacing operation last year saw him win an ATP 250 event in Antwerp, the Scot had high hopes heading into 2020, but he has now released a statement revealing details of his latest problems.
“It’s been unbelievably complex,” said Murray.
“At the Davis Cup I was diagnosed with this bone bruise on the pubis, which was mild and obviously not a big deal, but they can sort of niggle on if they are not handled properly.
“It didn’t really get better. I started rehabbing, I started hitting a few balls, I started running again on the treadmill and stuff to try and build back up.
“The thought was maybe that I had just irritated it and should give it enough time until it’s gone, but my pain was not getting better. I was basically like, ‘Look, I am not happy with this diagnosis’.
“Because of the hip and the metal in the hip, it is extremely difficult to get a clear diagnosis because the metal on the scan makes it extremely difficult to read them.
“So the concern was then, well, we can’t see exactly what is going on in here, is there a problem with the actual prosthesis? Then from there, I had to have a bone scan.”
Murray went on to suggest the problem he is now suffering with is common after a hip resurfacing operation, as he admitted he is keen to avoid a fresh surgical procedure.
“There are complications with that because it is normal to have quite high bone activity in the first 14 to 16 months after hip resurfacing, so you can get red herrings, but all of those scans showed that it was clear,” he added.
“I started practising again a few days ago. I’ve been doing some running and just trying to build up to see what happens.
“When people have these operations, there is something called heterotopic ossification, which is basically like bone growing outside of the normal skeleton, so it grows in soft tissues.
“That grows for 14 to 16 months post-surgery and that can cause impingements, pain, aching, these sort of things. The issue is if you try to remove that too early, while it is still active in the process of growing, it just grows straight back.
“So what I need to do just now is build up in these next couple of weeks to really test it. Hopefully, it responds fine, but if it doesn’t, then I need to potentially have that removed.”
