Andy Murray believes he can crack the world's top 20 again – here's why

Four years after Tennis Australia prematurely announced his retirement on John Cain Arena, Andy Murray says his body has finally become accustomed to the weight of his metal hip socket. The finish line, as far as he is concerned, just keeps moving further away.

Each time Murray returns to Melbourne – the place where he broke down in tears during his 2019 pre-tournament press conference – the memories of those febrile days are revived. His acknowledgement that his career might be over drew rapturous tributes from rivals, columnists and even politicians. The All England Club promised to put up a statue at Wimbledon.

And yet, Murray’s career has consistently defied expectations. One can only marvel at the resilience of a man who will enter the Australian Open – where he is due to face 13th seed Matteo Berrettini on Tuesday – feeling more limber than he has for years.

“I do think that now my body is used to having the metal hip there I'm not getting so many aches and pains now,” said Murray “When I was 33 I was getting way more issues with my body than I'm getting now at 35 and a half, just because my body is used to the new hip.

“The biomechanics around my pelvis changed when I had the operation,” Murray added. “Obviously the rest of the body has to compensate for that metal joint. Like my left lower back sometimes gets sore. My left groin. But now I feel like my body is used to it, I am hoping it stays like that for a period of time and I can play top tennis.”

As he talks up his prospects, Murray might sound like a fading athlete trying to block out reality – a common trope in sport, which often finds fantasists declaring hopefully that “My best days are ahead of me”.

But there are facts behind the rhetoric. Murray wears a GPS-enabled Catapult device under his shirt when he plays exhibition matches. (Such as the two outings in Kooyong last week where he beat Zhang Zhizhen and Alex De Minaur back to back.) The resulting data shows that his footspeed is returning to pre-operation levels.

“When I move well I tend to play well and that's really important for me,” said Murray at the weekend. “That's probably been the thing I've been happiest about. The conditions are playing pretty fast here so it's even more important to be light on your feet.”

The sceptics argue that Murray is embarrassing himself by battling on, gnarled and scarred as he is. At times last season – notably during a disastrous final outing against Gilles Simon in November – he played far below the level expected of a double Wimbledon champion.

And yet, while Murray was especially frustrated by his poor showing at the slams, he still improved his ranking dramatically – from No134 at the start of the year to No49 by the end. If he can cut out the niggles – which included an inconvenient abdominal strain in the build-up to Wimbledon and repeated bouts of cramping in the autumn – then he believes he can halve that figure again, or perhaps even threaten the top 20.

“I feel like I'm playing significantly better than I was at the US Open last year,” he said. “I feel much better when I walk onto the court in terms of how I'm going to play and my understanding of what I need to do to be successful.”

The Australian Open has always been Murray’s most eventful slam. You could write a book on his five lost finals – one of which hinged on a floating pigeon feather – as well as other imbroglios such as his wife’s X-rated comments about Tomas Berdych (2015), or his father-in-law’s frightening collapse (2016).

So what will 2023 bring? Realistically, he starts as a distant outsider to reach the second round. And yet, if Murray can somehow topple Berrettini – a Hollywood-handsome giant who is the face of Netflix’s new documentary series Break Point – then he will have logged yet another remarkable cutting for his Melbourne scrapbook.

“It’s obviously a tough draw,” Murray told the assembled media at Melbourne Park at the weekend. “But I also feel like I'm in a much better place coming into it than where I was during any of the slams last year.”