Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
In a deluge of tears and tributes, Sir Andy Murray announced his impending retirement from tennis in a press conference on the eve of the Australian Open.
Ideally, the Scot would like to get to Wimbledon in July to say farewell in his home nation … but admits he doesn’t know whether he can play through the pain until then.
The 31-year-old has had a career that would be the envy of all but his peers in the rest of the sport’s ‘Big Four’, namely Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic. Indeed, the Scot would surely have won countless more titles to add to his two Wimbledon titles, one US Open, two Olympic gold medals and a Davis Cup, had he been placed in any era other than the current one.
However, despite this, he remains something of an enigma. There is no figure in British sport more divisive than Murray. He is a hero to many, especially in Scotland, yet often derided by citizens of the southern neighbours.
Indeed, it’s strange how many misconceptions cling resiliently to Murray. That he has no sense of humour. That he prefers the US Open to Wimbledon. That he is somehow anti-English because a decade ago he jokingly quipped he was supporting ‘anyone but England’ at the 2010 World Cup.
Some people would choose never to forgive him for these failings, but for the vast majority of us he has become a national treasure, perhaps the greatest British sportsperson of modern times and a pioneer to boot.
It’s true that when he arrived on the scene in 2005, as an 18-year-old wild card at Wimbledon, he was hard to get a read on. Murray didn’t look much like an athlete: too skinny, even scrawny. And he certainly didn’t act like other British tennis players we knew; reaching the third round, he seemed to have a grit and a talent we hadn’t seen before.
In interviews, he could be blunt and combative. The Wimbledon faithful would respond by churlishly refusing to rename Henman Hill.
But Murray won most of them over … eventually. The simplest explanation for this is that he brought us success, a phenomenon you’d have had to be at least in your mid-1980s to remember.
That, however, was only part of the reason we grew to love him. He softened a little and we learned to appreciate his honesty and wry humour. Not all people are born with natural charisma and the ability to cope with unprecedented media spotlight.
Murray has evolved into that rare thing: a thoughtful, opinionated sports-person who is prepared to speak his mind while still an active athlete. He is a staunch advocate for women’s rights, whether it is supporting equal prize money, correcting journalists, or his appointment of the French ex-player Amélie Mauresmo as his coach in 2014.
Murray has been one of the special few who created a dizzy golden period for British sport that took the old clichés of plucky defeats and oh-so-nears and submerged it in a flood of ludicrous success: successive Olympics awash with golds, fourth in a medal table, then third and then second; a British man winning the Wimbledon singles title, a Briton winning the Tour de France, then those achievements repeated and made commonplace.
In the early disappointments, including four defeats in his first four Grand Slam finals, you felt the same mix of regret for what might have been and hope for what still could be.
On Wimbledon’s Centre Court, where he suffered death by tie-break to Andy Roddick in 2009, where he was overwhelmed by Nadal in consecutive semi-finals over the next two years, his tears in defeat by Federer in the final of 2012 triggered the same response in many watching helplessly. It was never going to happen. The rest were just too good.
Until they weren’t. Murray’s storming run to Olympic gold on the same court a month later encapsulated what that giddy fortnight in London did: it made you a believer, made you bowl about the warm streets with a grin on your face, made you lob the old preconceptions out of the open window.
Then, on Centre Court on Sunday, July 7 2013, the Holy Grail was realised. People had lived and died waiting for a British man to win Wimbledon again, and many more were close to the edge in that last excruciating game.
Murray was leading 6-4 7-5 5-4. He was 40-0 up. And on serve. First one championship point was lost, then another, then another, then three break points for Djokovic.
You can’t forget these moments, not when you have gone through them with a sportsman. And, when Djokovic’s backhand into the net ended it, after 77 years of waiting, no-one knew quite what to do.
Murray put his hands to his head. His legs went. He booted a ball into the crowd and fell over and cried. Around the country millions were doing the same and more.
It is one of the melancholy truths of sport that only a few of the greats get to retire on their own terms. Even the strongest, the most tactically astute, are overtaken or outshone in the end.
However, none of us have been short-changed or cheated. Murray’s successes were never preordained but were the culmination of a lifetime of relentless work and ceaseless ambition. Instead of pouring scorn on him, let’s celebrate this tremendous athlete and the decade of unprecedented success for British sport that he pioneered.
Thank you, Andy.
