When Andy Murray hits his first tennis balls in more than six weeks there may be a momentary fear that he may have forgotten how to play the game.
After his back surgery, the Wimbledon champion is stressing caution at every turn but there is one thing he is convinced about. When he returns, he will be better than ever.
Murray took a break from his intensive rehabilitation programme to launch a new racket from his sponsor, Head, on Thursday, but spent most of a cloudy morning at London's Queen's Club discussing his surgery, his injury, his recovery and his hopes for the future.
At 26, with two Grand Slam titles and an Olympic gold medal, Murray has his sights set on more glory and believes there is no reason 2014 will not see a new, improved version of the man who broke a 77-year drought of British male champions at Wimbledon just four months ago.
"I hope I'll be able to play better than before because for a couple of years, there have been shots that I couldn't hit any more," Murray said as he perched on a stool at Queen's, perhaps not the best idea for someone recovering from back surgery.
"I wanted to have it done because I wanted to enjoy being able to play and be pain free and not have to tailor all my training and all of my days to having to deal with this issue.
"I couldn't play the shots because it was too painful and because I couldn't generate the power. Providing the surgery has gone well, it should allow me to be able to play the strokes I want to and not have to play managing the issue, so that's exciting.
"If I watch videos of when I was playing five years ago, six years ago, there are some shots that I was like 'ahhhh'. I was saying earlier in the year, 'ah, I'd love to be able to do that' and I couldn't any more.
"It wasn't so much the serve. It was other shots that were the issue. And also just general movement, not being as stiff or inhibited. I wanted just to be free again in my movement.
"I guess we'll have to wait and see how it goes but I'm positive that if I do all the right rehab and recovery stuff and don't rush back, that when I do get back on the court I'll be able to hit shots that I wasn't able to hit for the last 18 months or so."
The Scot postponed his surgery to help Britain qualify for the World Group of the Davis Cup - "if I didn't play [people would have said it was] because I'm not patriotic enough" - but hopes to be fully fit in time for the Australian Open in January.
He will head to his training base in Florida in about 10 days and is scheduled to play in an exhibition event in Barbados at the end of the month.
Murray's recovery means he will be missing from this week's season-ending Barclays ATP World Tour Finals, the eight-man event held at London's O2. The Scot will, however, be keeping a close eye on his rivals via television and is not predicting too many surprises when it comes to picking the eventual champion.
"I think the winner will come from Rafa [Nadal] and Novak [Djokovic] but I think Roger [Federer] will have a good tournament," he said. "I think he'll play well."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article