Andy Murray may require further surgery as he faces anxious wait over hip injury

Murray has not played since featuring at the Davis Cup in November.
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Tony Mogan26 February 2020

Andy Murray may need to undergo another operation before he is ready to return to top level tennis.

Murray has not played since November due to a bruise on his pelvis bone and was forced to withdraw from the Australian Open and two further ATP events.

The former world no.1 has not ruled out the possibility of taking a wild card at the Miami Open next month, but admits there is still uncertainty over his future.

The three-time grand slam champion has resumed practice this week but must now wait to learn whether more surgery is needed.

Murray said: "It's been unbelievably complex. 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.

Andy Murray Resurfacing: Amazon Prime Documentary

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"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'.

"And 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.

"But 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.

"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."

Murray had his second hip operation at the end of January 2019, so he is optimistic this latest period of uncertainty will not last too much longer.

"I would hope I should know by the end of next month whether I'm good to play or not with it," he said.

"That's what I have to wait for. And then the issue around that is, if they can't get to it with an arthroscope, which is obviously the hope, that I would then have to be opened up again. That obviously takes longer to recover."

Additional reporting from Press Association

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