Frank Malley
A certain description keeps coming up in the extraordinary life of Andy Murray: “Unbelievably competitive.”
That is how his junior coach Leon Smith, now Davis Cup captain and one of the most important figures in British tennis, described the five-year-old he first saw wielding a tennis racquet back in Dunblane in 1993.
It is a phrase also used when discussing Murray by a certain John McEnroe, thus proving it takes an “unbelievably competitive” person to know one.
So where did it come from?
Some of it comes from a gene pool that included a grandfather in Roy Erskine who played professional football for Hibernian, Stirling Albion and Cowdenbeath.
Some of it comes from the challenges he has had to overcome in his 25-year-old life.
Such as experiencing the Dunblane massacre of 1996, when Thomas Hamilton killed 17 people, mostly children, before turning a gun on himself.
Murray, who was eight at the time, has always been reluctant to talk about the ordeal but, in his autobiography, ’Hitting Back’, he describes attending a youth group run by Hamilton and the fact his mother Judy used to give him lifts in her car.
Then there was the separation of his parents, Willie and Judy, when he was nine, which saw Murray and his brother Jamie go to live with their father.
Yet the Murray steel also comes from growing up in the shadow of his older brother amid a sibling rivalry that spilled onto the tennis court.
As a youngster, Jamie was rated the second best junior player in the world and beating him became Andy’s greatest motivation.
When the younger brother’s first victory came, in an under-12s final in Solihull, Andy taunted Jamie so much he received a rap on the hand so hard he lost a nail.
Pushing the boundaries, fuelled by an inner fire to be the best, came naturally to Murray.
It is why he did not go down the usual route, which would have taken him through the Lawn Tennis Association, the organisation not exactly renowned for producing world-class professionals.
Instead, in his mid-teens he headed for Spain, having reasoned a young Rafael Nadal was training with Carlos Moya, then the world number one, while he was hitting balls with brother Jamie.
Murray moved to Barcelona, where he trained on the clay courts of the Sanchez-Casal Academy. He put up with the homesickness, and his academic studies also suffered, but, in terms of his tennis education, it could not have been better.
At an impressionable age, Murray was brushing shoulders with success rather than failure and, when he won the junior US Open in 2004, it was obvious a star was in the making.
It would be easy to skate over the rest as if it just all fell into place.
That would be wrong. Yet all the time Murray knew where he was travelling and was ruthless in his determination to get there.
He ditched Brad Gilbert, the former coach of Andre Agassi, who was brought in at vast expense by the LTA to help Murray take the extra step up the world rankings.
Instead, he surrounded himself with an entourage of physios and fitness coaches who helped him through the punishing routines to add brawn to his undoubted tennis brain.
And always there was mum Judy, herself a national tennis coach and his biggest supporter, to lean on.
And so Murray soared all the way to the world’s top four, reaching the final of the US Open in 2008 against Roger Federer on the way.
He lost in straight sets but vowed to go one better.
For four years he has been striving to do just that, and it has been a tough road.
Three more grand slam finals have followed. In the first two at the Australian Open he was outplayed, first by Federer and then Novak Djokovic.
That second loss, in January last year, was probably the toughest of his career.
Murray’s philosophy, partly taken from his love of boxing, has always been that to be better than your rivals you must work harder and gain advantages in any way you can.
The slap in the face that, after all the pain and suffering, it was still not enough, was something the Scot struggled to deal with.
And he now had not two of the greatest players of all time to deal with, but three. Djokovic’s elevation was a source of hope, too, though, that it was possible to make such a big step forward through relatively small improvements.
Murray demonstrated his determination to do the same by hiring eight-time grand slam champion and no-nonsense hardman Ivan Lendl as coach at the end of last year.
The impact has been evident this season in subtle changes to Murray’s game - the flatter forehand and kick second serve being the most obvious – but also his mindset.
Steely, focused, ruthless.
It so nearly paid off in the Wimbledon final against Federer in July, the first for a British man in 74 years.
Murray won the first set and almost took the second, but back came the Swiss with his rarefied brand of attacking tennis to clinch a seventh title.
The 25-year-old’s despair was clear to all as, his voice cracking, he attempted to address the fans on Centre Court.
They roared ever louder the more the tears flowed and, although he was not the victor, he was not a loser either.
He gained both invaluable confidence from finally playing to his potential in a final and a new-found love from the public that carried him to a golden moment only three weeks later.
Instead of being beaten down by the agony of another near miss, Murray returned to Wimbledon for the Olympics more determined than ever to win a big one, and this time he managed it.
And he did not just win gold, he proved – to himself most of all – that he belongs in the exalted company at the top of the tennis world by edging a tight semi-final against Djokovic and then handing Federer a beating the like of which he had never experienced on Centre Court before.
For Murray, finally it was a reward for all the years of hard work, all the Christmases spent running on Miami beach, and all the times he had put himself and his heart on the line.
But no sooner had the gold medal – and then a surprise silver in mixed doubles - been hung around his neck than thoughts of grand slams crept in. Could this be a glorious springboard to something even bigger?
And so Murray stepped on to Arthur Ashe Stadium, tennis’ biggest and brashest arena, for his fifth grand slam final.
And finally, emotionally, wonderfully, it was his time.
Source: http://feeds.examiner.ie/~r/iesportsblog/~3/8HkzcuqlV0c/post.aspx
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