He arrived with a heart full of hope. He left in a sweating hurry, clutching his gold medal and a Union flag. “Sorry,” Andy Murray said in a corridor in the bowels of the Centre Court where he had just beaten Juan Martín del Potro in a tick over four hours of flawed and compelling tennis. “Got a plane to catch”.
The plane was a jet hired by his old Spanish friend Rafael Nadal. Their destination was Cincinnati, a journey of 5,000 miles to fulfil their obligations on the ATP Tour, this one a Masters 1000 event that doubles as a warm-up for the US Open, which begins on Sunday week in New York. Immediately after that Murray will fly back to the UK, reintroduce himself to his wife, Kim, his daughter, Sophia, and their two dogs, Maggie May and Rusty (Lleyton Hewitt’s nickname). He might even get a moment to take them all for a walk on the common not far from their home in Oxshott, Surrey.
More likely he will throw some clothes in a bag, head for Heathrow and catch a plane to Glasgow, where on that Friday he will meet up again with Del Potro. Great Britain, the defending Davis Cup champions, play Del Potro’s Argentina in the semi-finals and the atmosphere in the Emirates Arena will be every bit as electric as it was on Centre Court here on Sunday evening, when the 10,000 fans were split perhaps 60-40 in Murray’s favour (a nod towards the long-standing football rivalry between Brazil and Argentina), but in the end they were united in celebration of the monumental efforts of both players.
The finalists, good friends since a bust-up in Rome many years ago, hugged and cried at the net when it was done, smiled for the cameras on the podium and disappeared into the night. It is what they do. This is the life of a tennis player: engage, shake hands, move on.
Before he headed for that plane ride with Nadal (who had given Del Potro three hours and eight minutes of his best the previous evening in a torrid semi-final), Murray paused to reflect on what he had achieved and where his career and life was going now, at 29 and at the peak of his powers.
He never did stay in the apartment he had hired for himself and his team outside the village. That was a plan conceived remotely, back home, before he had landed in this crazy city, before he had a chance to remind himself what the Olympic Games are all about. That reality kicked in during the ramble around the Maracanã at the opening ceremony, where he had been asked to carry the flag. He said yes in an instant, when asked a couple of nights earlier.
Instead of staying in his professional bubble, then, he roomed with his brother, Jamie, probably for the first time since they were small kids back in Dunblane. They played in the doubles and lost.
“It’s been different to London,” he said. “I stayed in the village and enjoyed that a lot. I spent time around the team, chatting to the other athletes and feeling part of something bigger than just your event, which is nice.
“The loss with Jamie was hard. I was really down after that – pretty upset after being on a bit of a high after carrying the flag a few days beforehand. It’s been quite an up-and-down few weeks emotionally but I‘ve enjoyed the experience again and will probably get another chance to play in Tokyo in four years’ time.”
He did look outside his personal bubble, as well. “I saw the last hole of the golf [that Justin Rose won in style]. My match could have gone either way, the golf could have gone either way. I had seen Max Whitlock get the gold before I went out. I’d seen him around a little bit and chatted to him and to a couple of the other gymnasts. It’s amazing what those guys do, what they’re able to do with their bodies – and they’re all really, really nice guys.
“I work hard for this. I was emotional at the end. I never expected to be competing for these events when I first started playing. I am very proud to have got the chance to do it again.”
Someone who knows Murray nearly as well as his own family is Leon Smith, the captain of GB’s Davis Cup team and one-time mentor of the teenage Murrays, who was there screaming along with the rest of them on Sunday night.
“You could tell ever since he arrived here that everything was about winning,” Smith said. “He came through some unbelievably tough matches, against [Steve] Johnson and Fabio [Fognini]. And the level Del Potro was coming out with, having beaten Novak [Djokovic] and Rafa pushed Andy hard. It’s just another incredible week for him, a huge milestone. The Olympics means an awful lot to him.
“I don’t know if he will do the same for the US Open but the bottom line is he’s playing great tennis this year and at Wimbledon he played fantastic tennis. He is going to be tough to beat. He is playing to an incredible level.
“There was a lot of talk about whether he would be in a hotel or in the village but he was in the village and he absolutely loved it. We got one apartment we were all in, sitting around talking all day, the golfers were across the way. It was pretty much an open door policy, everyone popping in and out to talk.
“Life there, in the lift or in the food village, you are bumping into a lot of people and he is very recognisable. But he’s happy to speak to everyone and he knows every sport, everything that was going on with the British team, every result, who needs to do what to progress.
“I was in the lift listening to him talking to other athletes and thinking, ‘How are you able to keep up to date with so much going on elsewhere?’ He has got this incredible radar for other sports.
“Being flagbearer was one of the proudest moments of his career and you could tell that. I think he saw himself as someone who could be around the village and share experience with other British athletes.”
Murray, meanwhile, glanced at his minders. They were getting anxious. “Got to go. Might not make it.” Invariably he does make it.
At no point in the conversation did Murray let go of that flag. He probably slept in it on the plane to Cincinnati.
