Click here for the first four editions of “Return Error.”

Andy Murray is a fairly easy player to understand. He plays similarly to how he behaves on court: the iron-wristed crosscourt backhands reflect his consistent intensity, the way he scrambles to get back in a point when one of his soft second serves is pummeled shows that he’s not in control all the time, the audible effort-saturated exhalations when he sprints for a drop shot show his willingness to fight until the last ball.

Murray will tell the press exactly how he’s feeling, too, even if he might feel differently in an hour or a week. After a disappointing loss to Denis Shapovalov at Wimbledon, he openly contemplated whether the work he was putting in was worth the results he was getting. This provoked a storm of retirement rumors, but Murray was back on court at the Cincinnati Masters. Despite another shattering loss, this one to Stefanos Tsitsipas at the U.S. Open, Murray has continued to climb the ladder, rung by painstaking rung.

While Murray is transparent in his goals, it feels as if his comeback has been misunderstood by many. Just before his hip started to plague him in earnest, Murray was #1 in the world by a distance, the reigning Wimbledon champion, and a tiebreak away from a first major final against Rafael Nadal at Roland-Garros in 2017. A red-hot Stan Wawrinka came back to win that semifinal, and after the tournament Murray was physically impacted by the effort. His hip flared up in the last two sets of his Wimbledon quarterfinal with Sam Querrey, which Murray lost 1-6, 1-6. Murray tried his best to compete at the U.S. Open — his name remained in the draw until the last minute (when he pulled out, it was so late in proceedings that the tournament invoked the weird rule of the fifth seed replacing the second seed in the draw, so Marin Čilić took Murray’s place) — but he ended up having to pull the plug on the year.

The end of Murray’s 2016 was a stretch of fierce dominance that tends to get swept under the rug due to Novak Djokovic winning two majors that same year. But Murray, in the space of a couple months, reeled off titles at Queen’s, Wimbledon, the Olympics, Beijing, Shanghai, Vienna, Paris, and the ATP Finals. Murray blew past Djokovic in the ATP rankings to reach #1, and his lead in points was so big that it took Nadal the best part of 2017 — a year in which a healthy Murray was largely absent — to run him down. It’s easy to see an alternate universe in which a fit Murray shared 2017 dominance with Federer and Nadal.

Unfortunately, Murray was not healthy in 2017 (or 2018, or 2019, or much of 2020). The Scot’s comeback has been so imbued with the limbo of waiting out hip pain and then coming back only to find that he’d lost fitness has provoked some questions of Murray’s motivation, and even some decrees that he should call it quits.

While these reactions are unwarranted, they’re not surprising. Murray, now with a metal hip, isn’t going to magically rediscover the world-class fitness he had in 2012 or the once-top-level return game that he’s now lost the edge of. Realistic predictions for the peak of his comeback are top-20 or top-10, not a return to the circle of recent major winners. So despite Murray’s evident bottomless wells of determination, some encouraged him to retire — notably, Mats Wilander at the end of 2020.

Murray has unsurprisingly proven these reactions foolish. Sure, he’s had a series of quasi-close losses to top players this year that have almost been cruelly encouraging — one tight set, one more lopsided set (Hurkacz in Cincinnati and again in Moselle, Ruud in San Diego, Zverev in Indian Wells). But he’s played well enough that big parts of these losses were played on even terms. He is significantly better than his current ranking of 172nd in the world. And having just scored big wins over the rising Carlos Alcaraz and Frances Tiafoe — the latter was an absolutely grueling three-tiebreak contest in which Murray saved two match points — the Scot is gaining some traction.

There are those who bemoan the loss of Murray’s endurance and ability to trade blows with the Big Three, but much of Murray is still here. His first serve remains a consistent weapon; he blasted 21 aces past Tiafoe yesterday. And he still scrambles around the court, digging back plenty of shots. He even engaged Tsitsipas for four hours and 49 minutes in that brutal U.S. Open loss. Murray might not be the favorite against anyone besides Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic anymore, but what is left of his game alongside his considerable tactical acumen is a still tough nut for many players to crack.

Murray plays Diego Schwartzman next in Antwerp, a tough draw after the Tiafoe marathon. Schwartzman rarely gifts his opponents free points, and Murray needs free points now more than ever. It won’t be a shock (but it’s far from a given) if Murray falls to the Argentine tomorrow. But even if he does, he’ll likely respond in typical Murray fashion: he’ll kick and scream until losing match point, he’ll walk off court visibly gutted, then he’ll recuperate and try to be a little bit better for the next tournament he plays.

A common sentiment among professional tennis players is the desire to squeeze every last drop of potential and joy out of their careers. Even Mats Wilander, who first retired at 26 before trying to make a comeback two years later, can attest to this. This is all Murray is trying to do, and why should he be criticized for going about it in a way that we don’t expect or didn’t want to see? Players trying to maximize the game they have left is praiseworthy. And Murray — a three-time major champion in the best-ever era of men’s tennis — knows his game and himself better than any of us do. We can guess why he’s still playing or when he’ll retire, but at the end of the day this really doesn’t matter as much as the fact that he is and he eventually will when he’s ready.

So Andy Murray should play for as long as he wants, and not stop when Mats Wilander or any other pundits say he should. It’s all up to him and those closest to him, as it should be.