• Scot comes through charity match against Roger Federer • ‘I thought I did OK. My hip felt pretty good, not perfect, but it’s getting better’

Andy Murray, still limping and slyly grimacing as if housing a small pea in a shoe, flexed his working muscles with enough conviction against Roger Federer here on Tuesday night to suggest that a four-month absence from tennis has not impaired his determination to return as soon as he can.

Nor has it doused his love of the game, and he might yet be back in January as planned, testing himself at the age of 31 in the sub-tropical heat of Brisbane before the Australian Open in Melbourne.

There was encouraging evidence in this 1hr 40min exhibition match for Unicef and the Glasgow charity Sunny-sid3up – which Federer won 6-3, 3-6, 10-6 – that Murray could soon be ready to test his injured left hip to the point of super-stress.

“I felt better than I expected,” he said courtside at the end of the first set, almost a year to the day since he rose to No1 in the world on the back of the most punishing of schedules. “I thought I did OK. I’ve really missed it and I’m just so happy to be back.”

Bright young things need resolve to oust Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and co | Jacob Steinberg Read more

At the end, he told the 11,000 fans in the SSE Hydro: “There are things I would have liked to do better but for my first match in four months it was pretty good. My hip felt pretty good, not perfect yet, but it’s getting better.”

This was Murray’s first public appearance on court since July, when Sam Querrey put him out of the Wimbledon quarter-finals and out of his misery after a wretched couple of months.

An early athletic leap at the net suggested he trusted his body to respond to extravagant movement. Nonetheless, there were wide winners from Federer left well alone that Murray would have hunted down at break point in a slam final. His sideways movement, the real test of his fitness, was adequate, although he was as quick off the mark going forward as he always is, and the ball sprung sweetly from his racket much of the time.

Here, though, the priorities were entertainment, a gentle exploration of his physical limits – and a little performance pride. While there were was a running thrum of crowd laughter to keep the mood light, the unspoken challenge for both players was to contain their competitive urges, to put on a show in a workout with no significance beyond the obvious: no titles, no prize money, just reassurance that Murray could still compete.

He can. But, as he knows, he has a little way to go yet before he’s ready to put his feet to the fire.

He earlier outlined a schedule slightly less onerous than his usual six-week midwinter training block.

“My plan is to do a couple of weeks in Miami and then go to Australia very early, much earlier than I have done in the past,” he said. “Coming into the beginning of the new year I will be at a bit of a disadvantage because I have not played matches for a long time. So, if I can go there a bit earlier to get used to the conditions, a bit sooner than some of the other players, that might help level it up a bit.”

Federer – who endured the pain and frustration of a seven-month break in 2016 before returning in Melbourne to win his 18th grand slam title – was sympathetic to Murray’s ordeal.

“My best advice is just to get fit again, seriously that’s it,” he said. “Take your time, however long it takes. When you come back, you want to be at 100%, otherwise the problem is you feel you just can’t beat the best at the big tournaments.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Roger Federer wore a kilt for part of the charity match against Andy Murray. Photograph: BPI/Rex/Shutterstock

The Swiss entertainer did his bit by wearing a kilt at the start of the second set, smiling at Murray’s mid-match observation “that’s probably the only way I’m going to beat him”. The gap was not quite that obvious but it was also impossible to ignore – as was the tam-o’-shanter, see-you-jimmy wig Federer gave the Scot to wear, to loud applause, in the closing points. “At least it covered up my bald patch,” Murray said.

It was good to see him smiling, and the arrival of a second child for him and his wife, Kim, shortly will soon give him cause for more happiness. He has had the toughest year of his career after the best spell of his career.

That is a conjunction of experience he seems well able to accommodate and given the palpable joy he still gets from hitting a tennis ball, there is reason to believe he will be with us for a couple of years yet.

As for Brisbane and Melbourne, he said: “I hope I’m there. Things have been going pretty well so far in the rehab but you just never know. You have setbacks and then things come on quite quickly as well. I’ve been training for a few weeks now. Some days I’ve felt great, some days not so good – but I’m getting there and I’ll come back when I’m ready and 100 per cent fit.”

He explained for the first time why he chose not to have surgery, having come through an operation four years ago to fix a chronic back problem. “There are a few things going on in my hip that I don’t need to talk about here,” he said. “It had been causing me a problem for six, maybe eight weeks, from the French Open right through until I was really struggling by the end of Wimbledon.

“It became a big issue there and I was, like, I need to get this sorted out, I need to chat to some people. I spoke to a bunch of specialists. Surgery was not recommended for me, and obviously that’s great. You never know how you’re going to come back from surgery. If you can go a conservative route it’s better.”

While lowering expectations that he can emulate Federer, who returned to the Tour in Melbourne last year and won, Murray thinks he can get back to 100% fitness.

“I believe I will, yes,” he said. “You never know when you’re coming back from any injury, but that’s what I’m working towards, for sure. When I get back on the court next year and start playing again it might not come immediately at the beginning of the year. I might not play my best tennis straight off, but there’s nothing making me think [that he cannot].

“There is a difference between 75-80% practice and going flat out at 100% for two-and-a-half or three hours on the match court. Until I do that, I can’t say for certain – but I think I’ll be able to come back just fine.”

He added: “I made probably a bit of a mistake trying to get ready for the US Open [where he withdrew after the draw was made], but it was the last major of the year and I wanted to give it a go. Now it’s been time to give my body the rest and recovery it needs, and I will come back when I’m ready.”