On a sunny Sunday afternoon, Andy Murray, the scruffy haired Scott from Dunblane, lifted the Wimbledon Trophy for the second time. This gives him a total of three Grand slam titles. Impressive? Yes. Upsetting that he only has three? YES. Why? Here are a few facts you may not know about Mr. Murray — he has made it to 11 Grand Slam finals. He has been to the final at every single Grand Slam: Wimbledon, Roland Garros, US Open and Australian Open. He has given every concession speech there is to give. He has lost with smiles and he has lost with tears. He has thanked his team and he has cursed his mum.
That last habit is probably one of the reasons why the majority of tennis fans downright do not like the guy. But I say that needs to change. Andy deserves better. He’s a lad.
Now before you start getting angry about how ridiculous it sounds that he deserves better considering he’s ranked second in the world, married to the beautiful Kim Sears, has a child, sponsors and an egregious backhand, remember that the guy is from Scotland. It rains there all day every day. Imagine trying to recover from the biggest most heartbreaking losses of your career with that kind of atmosphere. And believe me when I tell you as part of the greatest generation of tennis players, with the top three players (excluding Murray) winning 23 of the last 28 Grand Slams, Murray had a lot of those days.
Coaches have left him, often saying he is too difficult to work with. Even Sears briefly left him seven years ago because he wouldn’t stop playing video games. Still not a fan? Well I guess that’s fine.
Moving back to Wimbledon, amidst Scotland hoping for its own referendum to leave the United Kingdom after the UK decided to leave the European Union, Andy Murray carried the nation’s hopes on his shoulders.
Rather than cracking under the pressure, Murray dominated and ran through his first four opponents without dropping a single set. This included Nick Kyrgios, Australia’s bad boy of tennis, who has won multiple championships such as the boys’ doubles event at Wimbledon 2013. I bet the English had a field day about where he got his unruly behavior on the court.
The tournament favorite Novak Djokovic lost in the previous round to American Sam Querrey, opening a lot of doors for many players. I have it on good authority that Judy Murray (Andy’s mum) was positively beaming that day. However Andy still had his work cut out for him.
Murray faced a tougher challenge when he played Jo-Wilfried Tsonga of France. The Frenchmen, wielding his racket as chef might wield a baguette in some kind of a culinary romance film, forced a deciding fifth set. However, Murray doesn’t mess around in the gym, and handily took the fifth set 6-1, winning the match 7-6, 6-1, 3-6, 4-6, 6-1, 12-10 after a battle that lasted nearly four hours.
Waiting for Murray at the semifinals was the big man from Czech Republic, Tomas Berdych. A man who himself has been to the final at Wimbledon before and more importantly has had a run in with Sears which led to her cursing at him on live TV at the Australian Open two years ago. After this incident, Kim has frequently worn a shirt declaring “Parental Advisory Explicit Content” to Murray’s matches. Let’s go Kim.
Murray dispatched the Czech 6-3, 6-3, 6-3, in what can only be described as the most boring semifinal I have ever seen, at least the bit I could stay awake for. What was far more interesting was the other semifinal, featuring tennis superstar Roger Federer versus seventh in the world Milos Raonic. I can say with absolute certainty that, except for Canadians, the whole world wanted Fed to win.
You see where this is going don’t you? Yes, Raonic won 6-3, 6-7, 4-6, 7-5, 6-3.
Now after eating brownies and ice-cream and engaging in other coping activities, I rose like a phoenix to watch Murray rise like a phoenix. Great banter.
This final’s match-up was new for Murray. He hadn’t had opponents other than Federer and Djokovic in finals of Grand Slams and he was ecstatic. Just a quick side note, I wanted to have a word before ecstatic but the editors wouldn’t budge. That’s just no way to treat a guest columnist. No banter.
Getting back to the tennis, Murray displayed some exceptional tennis dropping some huge first serves and returning Raonic’s serves that got up to 147 mph with great precision. Murray won 6-4, 7-6, 7-6.
I saw a poll that reported 22 percent of respondents believed that Raonic would still win, despite being conducted midway through the third set when it was pretty clear Andy was in complete control of the match. Really Canada? Anyway, not today.
So after an amazing two weeks at SW19 Andy Murray broke down into tears in disbelief that he had done it. After all the finals, all the moments of self-doubt and hatred along with whatever everyone else was throwing his way, he had gotten over the hump once more. Following his win, Murray has pulled out of the first tournament of the hard court season in Canada, the Rogers Cup. Classic Andy.
