It happened after he felt unwell while embarking on a Far East flight. He tried to ignore it, which was unwise perhaps, but there had been other occasions when he had taken such a risk and he did okay.
This time he didn't. After early defeats in both Hong Kong and in Macau his condition deteriorated, and he eventually felt so ill that he went to hospital, where he was diagnosed with tonsillitis.
Worse still, the former British Open Champion became saddled with a long-term reminder of how fruitless his trip had been, as it left him almost certain to fall from the top ten for the first time in three years.
All this, so soon after eight months out with injury, and while still clinging to a belief that he might yet become World No.1, must have felt like a psychological cluster bomb.
It seemed prudent therefore to approach Matthew with a degree of caution. But it wasn't needed. He was as chirpy as a bird with a new wing.
The damaged right shoulder which had been threatening his dreams, was now functioning well enough – with regular rehab – for him to compete at a level similar to when he achieved a career high No.5 in the Men’s World Rankings. “I handle losses with a new sense of perspective since having the operation,” he said cheerfully. “I don't feel as down.”
That had been evident to those who watched Matthew come close to a 2-1 lead over Ramy Ashour before losing a finely-balanced quarter-final in Manchester in October, when the Egyptian became World Open Champion. Matthew's ball striking was solid, his movement as good as ever, and his mentality even stronger.
This was a near-miracle. His journey through doubt and depression, pain and boredom, throughout much of 2008 had been a squash player's equivalent of Shackleton's escape on foot from Antarctica.
The first inkling that Matthew was headed for a spell in the cold came at the Tournament of Champions in January when he found difficulty brushing his hair. Where the biceps join the shoulder, right at the front, there was a tear.
“It had to be an operation: treatment was no good,” Matthew said. “You can't repair torn ligaments, especially in something as complex as a shoulder. I've learned that it's the most complex joint in the body!” he said with grim-sounding mirth.
Even after a prognosis of three months of inactivity, the implications did not strike home. “You think it will be three months till you're playing again,” he said. “You don't realise it will be three months before you can drive again or live any kind of normal life.”
If he dropped something and instinctively reached for it, the pain would make him gasp. Adjusting his sling was a delicate and harassing operation. An accidental nudge could be agony.
Fearing this, he chose not to travel around his home town of Sheffield by tram, and daily life became so difficult that he moved back to live with his parents. Fortunately they understood that a humorous view was vital for survival.
“He had an enormous Velcro sling, and we were so glad when he got rid of that!” laughed his father Hedley. “We could never get it into the right position.
“It was this and then that, and then the Velcro would stick all over the place. It seemed quite funny afterwards - but it caused so many arguments!
“It was a very emotional time. Sometimes he was just there on the settee, like a wounded lion. Normally he is so fit and strong. We're used to him bounding around the house; he's got quite a physical presence. It could be very frustrating.”
Later, when a comeback at the British Open in Liverpool seemed likely, he pushed too hard and suffered a relapse. The difficulty was that hitting a squash ball is so vicious an action that such setbacks were always a possibility.
It was then that his morale took its biggest dip. But gradually, along with the more philosophical attitude to defeats, he appears to have developed a safety valve of self-deprecation.
Asked about donating his match fees for drinks for supporters of his English National League team Duffield, and about once requesting no payment from the club at all, he shrugged it off. “I am not a good Samaritan,” he said. “I can be a pain in the arse. You make me sound like a saint!”
And told of players' compliments about his coaching, he deflected that too. He needed to take some of his own advice, he reckoned. He was better at giving it than telling himself what to do.
His responses were a hint that there was another much more urgent task – concentrating on the time remaining at the age of twenty-eight to become a great player. It also suggested an awareness that some of his pain might inadvertently have been passed to those helping him.
There was his trainer, Mark Campbell, whom he challenged to produce him a varied rehabilitation regime, and his physio Tamara Singer. Both were “brilliant,” Matthew says.
“I had to have targets in training, otherwise it was non-motivating. There were times when you felt you couldn't be bothered to wake up or get out of bed.
He needed help in rebuilding his arm. “You start doing weights because it has shriveled to half its size, “he said. “It was all a bigger shock than I had expected.”
Although there was time for a social life again, this novelty soon passed and then he became desperate to get back. Friends helped lift him, too many, he says, to name.
But he got through thanks to his own hard-forged perspectives too. “The reality is that the operation wasn't a life-threatening thing,” he said, a view which must have done much to aid survival.
“It was just the length of time to get right. As long as I got my head around the time thing, I managed to feel normal.”
It took six months to get back on court, but longer to feel he had become what he was. Meanwhile there were people far worse off than himself, he reminded himself.
Being so positive was only one significant achievement. With many extra months in which to train, he got himself fitter than before. He also used time to think more subtlety about improvement. Three Egyptians who hogged the top three rankings had different versions of the same ingredient in common.
All could hurt opponents unexpectedly. Shabana had his short/long mixtures, Ashour a developing eye for the moment to launch ambushes, and Darwish a slightly looser wrist than before, flicking the ball deceptively.
But direct copies don't work. Although Matthew is inserting more attacking ingredients into his orderly, diligent, patient and well-constructed style, he knows they need to evolve in their own way.
“If you attack out of your comfort zone it's because it's not quite your strength,” he said. “You have to free up your game - but do it in your own way.”
You can hear he still has the heart. He is adding new ways to hunt. Not only has the wounded lion recovered, but his best might yet lie ahead.