I can’t help feeling Andy Murray is the champion Britain needs, but not the one it deserves. Here is a man who brought this country sporting glory – after years of woeful underachievement, remember – only to be rewarded with that curiously British thing: mild derision. Perhaps we’d got so used to middling mediocrity, it was the shock of having to learn what it’s like to win.
Andy’s origin story has been told over and over, and the details are champion-forming, but what I love best is the Andy of the last few years: a young man who has found his feet. I love the naked, American-esque desire to win. And the “dour” expression that delights my heart for its honesty. I love that his coach, Amélie Mauresmo, is a woman, and he has no qualms in championing that. (Why would he? His coach for most of his life was his mother.) “Women can coach equally as well as men,” he has said. Most of all, I love how much he hates losing.
Lest we forget, when he does win, it’s under the crushing weight of the public’s expectations and hysterical headlines, most recently when his fiancee was caught swearing at a match. (“When there’s a lot of tension, it’s completely normal,” he said, while she rocked up to the next match in an Explicit Content jumper.) And still Murray succeeds. When he got to the Wimbledon final in 2012, losing to Roger Federer (“I’m getting closer!” he quipped), his tears told a moving story. Of course, he won it the next year.
Last weekend, he helped Team GB to the Davis Cup quarter-final, and burrowed further into our hearts and minds. He didn’t have to win, though. He’s already got a place in mine.
• Follow Bim on Twitter
