Can Andy Murray’s man fix my tennis elbow?

Castle and I cruised to a satisfying two-set victory and we repaired to the restaurant to lay waste to the cake trolley. When I reached down to rootle around for my wallet so I could pay for all the jammy Victoria sponge, I yelped in agony like a trodden puppy.

“Oh come on, you tightwad, tea for four’s not going to be that painful,” the others went. But it wasn’t that. My chronic condition — lateral epicondylitis (even more middle-class than “avocado hand” or “oyster thumb”) was back. Shooting pains were running up and down my arm like an electric shock. Castle knew what to do. “Call Andy Ireland,” he said. “He’s Andy Murray’s former physio.” (Murray had to pull out of the Miami Open in Florida in March because of an elbow injury.) “Seven years’ service with Murray, on the road. He’ll sort you out.”

When I played again I couldn’t hit a backhand without feeling the same sharp twinges. Even my forehand, for which I am feared by ladies’ third teams across west London, was a shadow of its former self, since the pain in my arm meant I jabbed or snatched at the ball rather than following through. Everything was going into the net, or out. Everything about my right arm hurt. Plus my game had gone to pot.

Then I tried everything. Stretching before and after. Warming up, warming down. Popping Nurofen, applying Deep Relief pain gel, icing the affected area before and after. Ignoring it. Meanwhile, everyone told me the only method that works. The toughest cure of all. Not playing.

“I had two years of steroid injections and physio,” said Mates. “Every time I thought it was safe to go back in the water I discovered it was too soon and I was back to square one. Unbearable waiting to get back on court — and then Gaddafi came up with the answer: six months of revolution in Libya, not a tennis ball in sight, and by the time I got back I was cured. I couldn’t play for three months and it was the only thing that sorted it out.’’

Three months! That was unthinkable. Especially because the summer of sport is almost here.

I’d already had one session — in March — with the physio Romain Luquet, who has a surgery in South Kensington. He had told me how I had developed an inflammation of the tendon — and why.

Basically, I was middle-aged and my technique was no good. “Very few professionals with the right technique get tennis elbow,” he said.

Tendinitis is not only common among tennis players. It also affects office workers at screens and anyone who performs repetitive tasks. The pain can be on the bone itself, or on the tendons and muscles attached to that bone, and can be triggered by contracting the muscles of your fingers, wrist or forearm — using a racket or a computer mouse, for example.

“People in their quarantaine will be more frequently affected,” Luquet added in his delicious French accent. This turns out to mean that the condition is most common with women in their forties (I am past my “quarantaine”, as it happens).

He gave me a session of ultrasound to give the tendon deep massage, to make it more flexible and to improve blood flow. Ultrasound also has a painkiller effect that goes deeper into the tendon than over-the-counter anti-inflammatory cream and pills. “Tennis elbow — it’s like a fuse that blows, from tiredness and stress,” Luquet said. His approach is to treat early and to rest the arm. “Only one patient has needed surgery — with 98 per cent it goes.”

With me, however, it didn’t — because obviously I hadn’t rested the arm. Soon I was dialling Ireland’s number and was in his clinic in St James’s the next day.

Ireland, a burly man who told me that Murray “still had elbow problems” (and that’s my pre-Wimbledon scoop in its entirety) asked me to bring my kit with me. I trotted in to his Ten clinic in my whites with both my rackets (I’ve bought a ProKennex specially for tennis elbow).

He examined both, observing that the grip on my Prince was too large, so I was holding my racket “like a log”, which enabled me to ask my favourite question of all time: “How big should it feel in my hand?” (Answer: there should be a finger space between your fingers and thumb when you grip the racket.)

Ireland also told me my serve should originate in my feet — not my poor overloaded arm. “Movement starts at the feet: drive up with your trunk — 40 per cent of the power of the ball starts with the trunk. You have to be a spring, a kinetic chain. Generate that energy in your legs — bend and drive up, lift and rotate through,” he said. “Like Rafa Nadal.” I am happy to pass on this useful tip.

Then it was time for “manips”: deep friction massage. He found the opposite of the sweet spot on my elbow — the hurty place.

“Like finding a bruise, then you just twang, twang.” He showed me how to massage my own arm. “Every other day, on this spot, for five minutes.” He also used a metal spatula to abrade my tendons with a “mobilisation tool’’. His little curved silver blade dragged along the skin, picking up fascia — connective tissue — and helping to shift the adhesions — knots — of the tendon. It hurt.

“Most tennis elbows take several weeks — some never get better,” he said. Then he went on, sternly: “If you’re playing and feeling it, it’s not helping.”

I gazed at him beseechingly. I really, really didn’t want him to tell me not to play tennis until it was better, but he did, in a mixed metaphor I won’t forget in a hurry. “You can’t fix the motor if it’s still running — it’s like a sinking ship.”