LONDON: British tennis was savouring its first male grand slam champion for 76 years on Tuesday but Andy Murray’s extraordinary feat in New York was actually the antithesis of decades of failure from the nation where the sport was born.
The 25-year-old’s refusal to accept second best in Monday’s US Open final against Serbian ironman Novak Djokovic, to stare defeat in the face and still find the will to outlast one of sport’s greatest warriors are not qualities to be found in any of Britain’s Lawn Tennis Association coaching manuals.
If they were, Scot Murray might not be ploughing a lone furrow in the world’s top 100 in which he is the only British male.
Thanks to the profitable Wimbledon championships, British tennis enjoys a budget that is the envy of the rest of the world, yet its failure to provide a crop of quality playershas long been a cause for embarrassment and amusement.
Before Murray, Wimbledon nearly-man Tim Henman had shouldered the nation’s hopes year after year along with Canadian-born Greg Rusedski.
Henman grew up with a tennis court in his back garden and Rusedski on the other side of the Atlantic. Like Murray, they were not products of a failing system.
When Henman and Rusedski, a former US Open runner-up, neared retirement, British tennis was staring at an alarming black hole. However, Murray’s mother and coach Judy had the courage and foresight to pack her son off to Barcelona aged 15 to acquire a proper tennis education.
The fruits of that decision soon became apparent as Murray climbed 449 places in the world rankings after turning professional in 2005, reaching the third round of Wimbledon where he lost in five sets to Argentina’s David Nalbandian.
Yet, those early steps into the seniors were difficult ones.
He hired, then fired, Andre Agassi’s former coach Brad Gilbert and surrounded himself with a team with whom he felt comfortable, headed by coach Miles Maclagan who came on board in 2007.
Murray reached his first grand slam final in 2008, losing to Roger Federer at Flushing Meadows.
He lost to Federer again in the 2010 Australian Open final and 12 months later fell to Djokovic, meaning that in his first three grand slam finals he had failed to win a single set – prompting unfair suggestions that he “choked”.
Murray, who had dispensed with Maclagan’s services in 2010, responded by hiring Ivan Lendl at the start of 2012, the poker-faced Czech-born multiple grand slam champion who made a career out of winning titles rather than friends.
Murray became the first British man since Bunny Austin in 1938 to reach the Wimbledon final this year and his performance against Federer illustrated his new belief, even if it did end in tearful failure.
With the monkey finally off his back, Federer in the twilight of his career and Nadal’s knees creaking, 2013 promises even greater rewards for Murray, whose rivalry with Djokovic is becoming one of the most entertaining. (Reuters)