Since he finished 2016 in furiously dominant fashion, obtaining the #1 ranking for the first time in an era of giants, Andy Murray’s career has been crowded with roadblocks. Hip pain held him back, forcing him into arthroscopic hip surgery in 2018, then hip resurfacing surgery about a year later. After the surgeries, various ailments dogged him for much of the next two years. But in beating Oscar Otte in five sets to reach the third round of Wimbledon, Murray’s return to tennis has glimpsed considerable daylight.

It was in the fifth set of the 6-3, 4-6, 4-6, 6-4, 6-2 triumph that Murray gave the crowd the most vintage moments. Otte presented plenty of challenges, including a powerful serve that springs of his racket remarkably quickly after his motion ends, but Murray was up to the challenge. He berated himself after practically every mistake, even after errant first serves (quite rare for tennis players). He ripped passing shots by the net-rushing Otte. Though Otte dug in after falling behind 2-0 and saved handfuls of game points in Murray’s service games, the two-time Wimbledon champion prevented his opponent from reaching a single break point in the decider. And in the final game, Murray produced a pair of clean lob winners, the second a crosscourt backhand beauty that Otte jumped for but didn’t have a prayer of reaching.

The match lasted three hours and 51 minutes — more time than Murray has spent on court in a single match since his first-round match with Yoshihito Nishioka in the first round of the 2020 U.S. Open. So it is perhaps most encouraging that Murray looked strong at the end of this match, playing some of his best tennis of the day in the last two sets. In his post-match interview, he elaborated: “Hips feel good.” This was greeted by a roar from the crowd, and unsurprisingly so. Andy Murray when unrestrained by his body has produced many of the highlight-reel moments of the glorious Big Four era.

When asked simply “did you enjoy that?” after the match, Murray responded “I enjoyed the end. The middle part, not so much.” In touching on the section of the match in which his shots were letting him down, Murray highlighted one of his best qualities as a player. He often screams in frustration after errors, and this is all the more frequent in his lapses. But it is because he clearly always believes he can do better, and far more often than not, he is right, as displayed by his stunning patches of play in the fifth set.

What was evident in his match today is that while he is not the player he was in 2012, much of the old Andy Murray is still here. His passion for tennis and victory remains unbridled — after breaking for 2-0 in the fifth with a drop shot winner, he simply planted his feet on the Wimbledon grass and screamed with his fists clenched — as does his drive. Given that he did not fade physically in the 3:51 match, even some of his unending stamina which outlasted Novak Djokovic in the 2012 U.S. Open final has managed to endure nearly nine years and two surgeries.

There’s no reason to think Murray’s run should end now. His next opponent, Denis Shapovalov, has nowhere near Murray’s grass-court pedigree, and has an often suspect return of serve. But the main takeaway from today is that performances like this — where so many of the three-time major champion’s attributes shine brightly and his body holds up — make it more and more possible that Andy Murray will be able to play tennis until he, not his hip, feels that he is done.

The champion deserves nothing less.

🔥❤️ pic.twitter.com/Aj8cp6EKzY

— Andy Murray (@andy_murray) June 30, 2021