Andy Murray is set for Queen’s sequel he feared he would never see

This is the new Andy Murray. Andy Murray II, the sequel. The second part of his career, the part he never thought would be possible.

Andy Murray training yesterday at Queens Club. Picture: PA.

This week, Murray will be back out on the match court at the Fever-Tree Championships at Queen’s Club, a tournament he has won a record five times, and he will hit his first ball in earnest less than five months after undergoing hip resurfacing surgery at the end of January. Admittedly, he will be playing doubles with Feliciano Lopez but, nonetheless, this could be the beginning of a remarkable comeback.

When he limped away from the Australian Open in January, beaten in the first round by Roberto Bautista Agut in five gruelling sets, he was in pain and he was prepared for the thought that he had played his last match as a professional.

Surgery was the only option to relieve the constant and excruciating pain in his right hip, He needed the operation simply to live a normal life; the chance to play tennis again was merely a pipe dream. But whatever the outcome of his trip to the operating theatre then, returning as a doubles player was not an option for the driven, competitive singles champion.

So, so many things have changed in the past five months.

“My goal is still to get back to playing singles,” Murray said yesterday, sounding a bit like his old self. “But I would say it was six to eight weeks ago I was chatting to my team about the best way to get back on to the court again, singles-wise. We felt that doubles would be a good option to test myself out and see how I feel.

“There’s obviously less loading on the body, less movement but you still have to make quick moves and quick reactions and things like that and it felt like it was quite a nice progression from the all of the rehab that I have been doing: going back on to the court and see how I’m feeling on a match court, playing doubles. That will give me some information on seeing where I’m at and what I need to improve or whatever.”

But the man who plays that first-round match against the top seeds from Columbia, Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah, will be a very different soul from the perfectionist who used to growl and grumble about the most minor of his mistakes, the abrasive character who did all in his power to win every point.

“I think when you spend time away [you realise] there is a chance you might not get back to playing again,” Murray said. “Now that I get the chance to play again, you remember the things that are actually important, the reasons that you actually start doing something, why you play a certain sport, do a certain job. Generally it is because it is something that you care about and that you actually enjoy doing and it is not just to win tennis matches.

“I hit some balls with some kids a few weeks ago and I was practising on the court next to them and seeing young kids running around and hitting tennis balls, just loving practising and playing. It makes you remember that is how you started and the reason why you do it is because it is fun and you love it and it becomes a passion.

“Yes, everyone wants to do well in their job but, ultimately, all you can do is do your best and my best now might not be what it was when I was 25 in terms of what that looks like on a tennis court. Who knows, maybe it will be in a few months. Right now it certainly isn’t so I can’t be expecting to put in that kind of performance.”

He is already getting used to the misery of defeat. As an added bonus of the surgery, Murray is now not only able to play and train for tennis again but he can enjoy a host of simple pleasures that were beyond him for the past couple of years: sitting at the dinner table with friends for a couple of hours, walking the dogs and playing golf. Alas, the golf is not going as well as the tennis – he and Jamie, his brother, both hit triple digits at a club championship at Wentworth on Saturday, an experience Murray described as “not pleasant”.

So, as he tests his new hip through the grass court season, does Murray believe he could challenge for the Wimbledon doubles title? The new, laid back Murray will not take the bait. “I think it’s possible but it doesn’t matter either way,” he said.

“I would like to but I don’t mind if I don’t. I would say it would be unlikely, because I’ve not played many matches. And doubles on grass, it’s not like you sort of ease yourself into matches a little bit, points are over pretty quickly, you need to be quite sharp. It’ll depend how quickly I can get my reflexes and things like that back. It’s been OK in practice but obviously matches is a different story.”

Getting past the top seeds this week is his first goal as, like all the other Britons at Queen’s, he has a tough draw. Kyle Edmund takes on the top seed, Stefanos Tsitsipas, in singles, Dan Evans faces Stan Wawrinka, the three-time grand slam champion, and Cam Norrie plays Kevin Anderson, last year’s Wimbledon finalist.

One of the more mouth-watering of the first round matches pits Juan Martin del Potro, the 2009 US Open champion and world No 12, against Denis Shapovalov, Canada’s rising star with the all-court, all-action game.