Wimbledon Champion, Andy Murray

Game, set and match in a matchless performance

This time Last year Andy Murray had showed an unfamiliar emotional side to his character in losing the Wimbledon final to Roger Federer. This year victory’s laurel crowns his brow.  Suddenly Murray is newly minted as a sporting hero. Though in fact the heroics of his achievements have been in the  long slog to turn him from a talent into a player. He built his body; he built his physical endurance; he built mental strength and he built his game over many hard years.

This was not a prize gamely given on a sports day it was crafted win of the grandest of grand slam titles won by  toil, sweat and tears. I am one of the few who could not watch the matches Murray played this Wimbledon – except in IPlayer – in case I jinxed him. I don’t know if there are any others out there afflicted by such weird, senseless superstitions! Well it worked – this time!

Lawn Tennis used to be more than a spectator sport to me, I played in Presentation College Reading with my friends Peter Tynan, Adrian Pomfrett and Tommy Codd. I was never very good. In fact I might safely say I was no good but I loved it with a passion.

Through those early years of my life, certainly from 1968 – the first championship of the open era –  every summer for those two weeks I was glued to the Television. I watched as much tennis as I could. These were the glory days of Newcombe, Roche, Laver and Ken Rosewall in the mens game; and of Billy Jean King, Margaret Court, Anne Jones and Virginia Wade in the women’s. The British women’s game until 1977 and Wade’s famous victory continued to produce top tennis players who won grand slams – the finest of which was undoubtedly Anne Jones’s victory in 1969. The mens’ game was already a generation into  its long drought. The top ranking British player was then Roger Taylor who was a semifinalist at Wimbledon in 1973.

Two champions but only one winner

This Irishman has seen some great tennis in the long wait for a British Wimbledon champion.  Perhaps I remember most the finals of Borg, McEnroe and Sampras. Though no one can deny that the training, athleticism and sporting-engineering that has minted Federer, Nadal Djokovic and Murray has probably given us the greatest players of the game of all time. In that there is a curious coincidence between great Tennis players and say great opera singers. Prodigious talent is never enough, it may give you the start but only relentless training and relentless devotion to perfecting all elements of  performance on court or stage make a great star.

Andy Murray was long in this constellation of endeavour but this wonderful Wimbledon victory for him – in a three straight sets over Novak Djokovic – has settled his place in the stars.  I thank him for his extraordinary endeavour to  achieve brilliance and I hope he long prospers to enjoy his hard won triumphs.

I am certain we are now looking at a new World Number 1 and an new era in the game I dare to love.

I must though, as with Cardiff Singer of the Year and all the other BBC broadcasts complain that too much time is devoted to pontificating from the experts witnesses to too little time to just witnessing good play. The spirit of the new Media age is Gladiatorial it places everything into a monochrome entertainment format; mounts everything in an Everest of hype and hyperbole; sets everything in the vulgar circus of the Media colosseum. It has reduced every real achievement to the illusion and unreality of the celebrity world inside the TV studio.

I may be a single voice crying out in the wilderness but that does not make me wrong.