Tom English: 'In the real world, any major will do'

Published on Saturday 4 July 2009 19:29

WHILE BRITAIN moped, Andy Murray moved on. Onwards and upwards. Wimbledon in the past. Flushing Meadow in the future. Somebody asked him if the disappointment of losing to Andy Roddick was going to destroy his year. Murray look at his questioner like he had two heads. "That would be pathetic," said the Scot.

Quite right.

Murray operates in the real world. The fantasy he leaves to us. The talk of fate and destiny is garbage, really, and he knows it. Britain gets serious about its tennis for two weeks a year. The media tunes in and the celebrities turn out for a fortnight in June and July and that, pretty much, is the extent of it. The three other Grand Slam events come and go with nothing like the fuss of Wimbledon. To the Wimbledon set, they seem like regular tour events in comparison. So when the guy in the press room asks Murray if his season is wrecked having lost to Roddick no wonder Murray looks at him strangely. There's still a major to play for. And it's the major that suits his game the best. A major he made the final of last year.

To Murray, in the real world, any major will do. Wimbledon, US Open, French, Australian. He's not picky. His world does not begin and end at SW19.

So he lost against Roddick. It happens, you know. Nothing is written in the stars in sport. Roddick played his finest match in six years and deserved to make the final. Murray lost just two service games, same as Roddick. He hit more aces (25-21), more winners (76-64) and made fewer unforced errors (20-24).

None of that mattered because Roddick played marginally better and won both tie-breaks, banging down his 130mph first serve with a scarcely believable regularity. In the entire match he was 75 per cent on his first serve and in the tie-breaks he was over 80 per cent and up. This season he has 25 out of 29 tie-breaks. The guy is a tie-break freak.

When he's playing smart as well as hard, when he's soaking up the energy of the crowd and getting inspired then that's a heady cocktail. Roddick was cool where before he was headstrong, he was tactical where in previous years he's been all fire and fury. Producing his very, very best stuff, he won, just.

And you could see what it meant to him. Mr Supercool left the court in composed fashion, he walked indoors, started to climb the stairs and paused, curling himself up in a ball for a few seconds, the emotion of his victory now hitting him.

Beating Andy Murray is now a very big deal. Especially at Wimbledon, but pretty much anywhere in the world. He's a target to be shot at, a massive scalp. That's how much he has improved in the last year. He's 22 years old and he is a thrilling blend of artist and street-fighter. He is getting better all the time, getting closer to one of these Grand Slam titles. He is something to be proud of, something to rejoice in.

God knows Scotland's sporting excellence is thin on the ground. The footballers are toiling to finish second in a World Cup qualifying group with Norway, Iceland and Macedonia as the only rivals. The rugby team can win no more than one game a season in the Six Nations. Scottish golf is in crisis with not one representative in the top 120 in the world rankings.

There are Scottish heroes but too few of them. What was remarkable about the achievements of Chris Hoy at the last Olympics is that he knew the whole of Scotland was looking to him for national sporting validation and he embraced all that pressure and grew bigger because of it. That's what true greatness is all about.

Murray, you suspect, has the same moral fibre as Hoy, it's just that he's young and hasn't gone the distance yet. All we can ask of him is that he continues to get better, which he's obviously doing. And he's doing it fast. And one day soon he will win a Grand Slam. He will. When Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal and Andy Roddick all say that he will do it they're not just saying it to be nice, they're saying it because these guys know what champions look like even before they are champions.

Friday's defeat was the end of something in one sense. But, really, it was a temporary stop on the way to something special somewhere down the line.