Andy Murray is not the youngest of the tennis supergroup known as the Big Four. Novak Djokovic was born a week later than Murray was.

But it is still quite an unpleasant surprise to realize that Murray, 31, very likely will be the first of the remarkable quartet to retire.

Roger Federer is somehow still gliding at 37. Rafael Nadal is somehow still persevering at 32.

But Murray has been in too much pain for too long with no relief in view, and on Friday in Melbourne, Australia, all of those who have followed his career from up close or a great distance could share some of his pain, too.

It was not what he said. It was what he couldn’t say.

Murray, like all tennis stars of his stature, has spent as much time in news conferences as most of us have spent at the coffee shop. They are an artificial construct that has become a natural habitat for Murray, a droll, strong-minded Scotsman with the voice that sounds like a low-flying drone — a voice he once called “my least favorite thing about me.”