He snarls when things aren’t going his way, or forlornly hangs his head. He reaches up to the sky in abject distress or screams down at the asphalt. He can cast a troubled figure on a tennis court, grumbling and murmuring; swatting imaginary flies with his racket, dragging his feet. A man locked in an ever-simmering conflict with himself.
Maybe that’s why we didn’t like him at first? Too emotional. Not Tim Henman. Maybe it was because he was Scottish? Remember that time he joked that he would support “whoever England were playing against” in the World Cup? Maybe it was that.
Whatever the reason, we didn’t like Andy Murray. We didn’t like him until we had no choice. He just kept winning. He kept winning and kept seeming like a very nice, thoughtful and articulate man who respected his opponents and loved his mum. A champion of women’s rights long before 'being an ally' was the done thing. Someone unafraid to make a press conference, or reporter, uncomfortable if it meant saying what was right. (Male player: never forget).
We didn’t like Andy Murray, and then we loved Andy Murray. And now it looks like we’re going to have to say goodbye to him.
“Yeah, not feeling good,” he said in a press conference in Australia yesterday, head bowed and tears welling, when asked about the recurring hip injury that has been affecting him for close to two years.
“I can play with limitations, that’s not an issue,” he added. “It’s having the limitations, and also the pain is not allowing me to enjoy competing, training or any of the stuff I love about tennis.”
It’s a sad thing to see an elite athlete’s body break down, an instrument that has been honed over so many years and deployed with such unconscious ease just… disintegrate. A sand castle washed away when the cruel grey tide sees fit. Thousands of hours of training, refinement, meticulous diet and conditioning become meaningless in the face of age, wear and a run of bad luck. They know it’s coming at some point, but that doesn’t make it any easier to witness when the legs give up, the elbow flares or, in Murray’s case, still just 31, the hip becomes too painful to tolerate. All that rehab, all that waiting, waiting, waiting and it’s still not enough.
“I have talked a lot, way too much, about my hip for 18 months. It’s a daily thing. It isn’t just people I work with that ask me; it’s everyone. So everyone I bump into, that is all I talk about it. It’s pretty draining.”
All those grueling five-setters, the legendary pre-season fitness camps in Miami, 10,000 hours and then some: 45 titles, two Olympic golds, three grand slams and a Davis Cup. He was a prodigy destined for greatness from the age of 11 who, somehow, kept up with the relentless pace of Nadal, Djokovic and Federer. He wants - is desperate - to bow out on his terms, which means making it to Wimbledon, for one last fortnight on that grass. The scene of his greatest triumph.
It feels a bit hazy now, the memory of summer 2013, Britain’s driest for seven years. Edward Snowden is top of the news cycle, same sex marriage in the UK is legalised, there’s a badger cull in Somerset and Prince George is born. And a 25-year-old Andy Murray is 40-0 up against Novak Djokovic in the Wimbledon final, three championship points a year after he’d been downed by Roger Federer at the same stage, his fourth grand slam final loss. The word 'bottler' is beginning to creep into discussions when his name is brought up.
Three chances to become Wimbledon champion, three let slip, deuce. F**k, he’s going to lose it again. Then: advantage Murray. Djokovic rifles that lethal straight-armed backhand down the line, but it clips the net… short.
Andy Murray wins Wimbledon.
His knees start to buckle, before he screams, snarls, with primal joy. “Yes, yes, yes, yes, YEESSSSSSS.” Kim holds her head in disbelief and the crowd just erupts. The noise, the noise, the noise.
“I’m just so glad to finally win this,” He tells Sue Barker during the trophy presentation, cradling it in his hands.
"I hope you guys enjoyed it", he says to the crowd. "I tried my best."
Andy Murray might not get the SW19 swansong that he craves, to bask in the sun and the adulation one last time. Retirement might be a too-brightly-lit press conference and a sense of crushing disappointment. Either way, his legacy is already cemented. The pale, frizzy-haired boy from Scotland who through talent, athleticism and sheer force of will (plus a really, really good backhand) ascended to the top of the game during the toughest era of all time. He arrived a snarling outsider and leaves a legend.
How good it feels to be proven so wrong about someone.
