Andy Murray is set to make his competitive return on Wednesday in the doubles at Queen’s, the 32-year-old Scot talks about meeting the woman who performed his “life-changing” hip surgery and how operating on the Queen Mother didn’t necessarily mean she was right for him.  

Five months ago, sitting in a news conference at the Australian Open, I thought I was seemingly on the verge of retiring from the sport that I love.

It was uncomfortable playing with my children at the soft play centre. I couldn’t sleep properly. I couldn’t do basic everyday tasks like putting on my shoes and socks. I was in pain all the time.

Now I’m getting ready to step back on to the court competitively in the doubles at Queen’s.

I didn’t expect to be in this position, I didn’t know how it would feel if I had the hip resurfacing operation.

Even if I’d never tried to play tennis again, I would have had the operation because I couldn’t walk properly.

A pivotal moment in my return has been meeting Sarah Muirhead-Allwood, the surgeon at the London Hip Unit who operated on me in January.

I knew she had operated on the Queen Mother’s hip in the past and other well-known people from outside of sport – but I didn’t know how that would translate to working on an athlete.

I first met Sarah in late January, shortly after I got back to London from Melbourne, and we chatted for about an hour. During this I asked her: “How do I know you’re good?”

I wasn’t doing it to be rude, but in sport you can tell how good someone is by their ranking. But how do I know a surgeon is good? She just said to me: “Well, you don’t. You don’t know.”

I felt she was very honest with me and I admired that. She didn’t promise I would get back to playing. She told me exactly what to expect and what my expectations should be.

If she didn’t know something then she would say she didn’t know the answer rather than trying to sell me something that might not be case. That was why I had surgery with her.

I didn’t want to have someone telling me “you’ll definitely be back and winning Wimbledon in five months”, because it doesn’t work like that and it wouldn’t have been true.

The reason for having the operation was not to come back and play tennis. The reason was to improve my quality of life and the operation has been life-changing.