When you’ve hitched a lift to St Andrews in a Rolls-Royce with Nick Faldo and travelled to Barcelona in a private jet with Eddie Jordan and taken a (first-class) train to London with Michael Vaughan. When Freddie Flintoff offers you a signed cricket bat and Serge Blanco offers you a plate of French sausage and Martin Johnson offers you a hearty guffaw for suggesting that he’s been “physical”.
When you’ve talked broom cupboards with Boris Becker over breakfast and skeletons in the cupboard with Greg Norman over lunch and everything in the cupboard with Anna Kournikova over dinner. When your daily trip to work is a ticket to The Masters or the World Cup or the Olympics or Wimbledon or the Tour de France or the Prix de L’Arc or the Monaco Grand Prix or The Open, you know that sooner or later the bubble has to burst. And it does. Payback. A call from my boss at Mission Control.
“What about Andy Murray?” he suggests.
“What about him?” I reply.
“We can get you an hour with him in Paris next week.”
“Oh. Really? I don’t suppose you could postpone it for another 10 years?” Confession: I had no wish to interview Andy Murray. No offence to Fred Perry (his sponsor) or Judy (his mum) or Willie (his dad) or Jamie (his brother) or Dunblane (his home) or Patricio (his manager) or Kim (his girlfriend) or to 6ft 1in tennis prodigies around the world, but there had to be at least eight good reasons to avoid the feisty Scot.
1. Murray is 19. When did you last meet a 19-year-old with an interesting view on anything? Shouldn’t we postpone this for at least 10 years?
2. When Murray was eight, a crazed Thomas Hamilton entered the gymnasium at his primary school in Dunblane and began shooting at the teachers and pupils at random. Murray found refuge with some classmates in the headmaster’s study and had to wait two hours for the nightmare to end. Some of his friends lost brothers and sisters, but it’s the one subject he refuses to discuss in interviews. How can I ignore such a huge incident in his life?
3. Murray has played terrifically in the past 12 months, but hasn’t yet reached the final of a Grand Slam event. He needs a coach to nurture his talent and take him to the next level. He’ll be a much better interview in 2016.
4. Murray abandoned school at the age of 15 and hasn’t read a book for six years. What are you going to discuss for the hour? Acne? His groundstrokes? How do you plan to write 3,000 words on this guy?
5. Murray adores his PlayStation and his iPod and all of those computer games you argue constantly about with your son. How do you plan to connect with this kid? Shouldn’t you be calling Tim Henman or Greg Rusedski or Sue Barker or John Lloyd? Whatever happened to Virginia Wade? Now that’s a story.
6. Murray’s idea of a great movie is Saw and Saw II. Hasn’t he ever heard of Crash or Brokeback Mountain? How can we have an intelligent discussion on Saw? His favourite music is Eminem and 50 Cent. Enough said. Agghhh!
7. Murray is fascinated by the great tennis champions but doesn’t read autobiographies because most are written with the assistance of a ghost. He prefers television to the written word.
8. Murray’s contempt for the press is unbridled. How do you build a bridge to somebody like that? What’s he going to say if he doesn’t respect you? But my extremely persuasive boss insisted I travel to Paris: “I think it’s a great time to interview him. He’ll be back at Queen’s next week after a very interesting year.” And Murray’s extremely helpful manager, Patricio Apey, was sure we’d get along. “Andy’s a great kid,” he said. “I think you’ll really enjoy him.”
So we sat, staring across a table at each other on the eve of the French Open: the tennis player who doesn’t read and hates journalists, and the journalist who doesn’t play tennis and wished he was some place else. And as I wearily unwrapped my tape recorder, I was reminded of a passage written by an American sportswriter, Gene Collier, who grew tired of hanging round locker rooms. “How stupid is this? I don’t want to wait for this guy. This guy doesn’t want me to wait for him. I know what he’s going to say. He knows what I’m going to ask. The readers know what I’m going to write. And I know what they’re going to say if they read it.”
But Andy Murray was a surprise.
THE INTERVIEW is 20 minutes old and I’ve offered him the chance of dinner with three legends from the game. “Borg,” he replies instantly. “I’d like to have dinner with him . . . and I’d take McEnroe and Sampras and Agassi — but that would be four.”
“Okay, make it four,” I concede. “To hell with the expense.”
“I’d have to have Agassi,” he insists. “He’s won on all surfaces, one of the few players alive that’s won all four Grand Slams. I’d take Sampras because he has the record of Grand Slam wins and Borg won five Wimbledons in a row and six French Opens.”
“But what would you ask them? How would you pick their brain?” “I’d ask: ‘How do you prepare for the big matches? How do you get yourself in the right frame of mind?’ I’d ask: ‘How do you get yourself out of difficult situations? What are you thinking when you are serving for a match in the final of a Grand Slam?’ I’d ask them how it feels. They might all say completely different things — that’s the beauty of tennis, it’s such an individual sport.
“Sampras might be thinking, ‘Okay, I’m going to go for a big ace down the middle’. Agassi might say, ‘Okay, I’m going to put my first serve into the guy’s backhand and then I’m going to hit some big groundstrokes’. But it would just be great to sit down and find out how they played in the big moments and how they dealt with pressure.”
Dealing with the pressure will be foremost on his mind next week when he returns to the Stella Artois Championship at Queen’s. Twelve months ago he arrived at the tournament a fresh-faced kid with a bright future from Scotland at the bottom of the world rankings. Six weeks later he was the new star of British sport and his career was heading for orbit.
In October he reached the final of the Thailand Open in Bangkok — his first on the ATP Tour — and played well against an untouchable Roger Federer. That month he travelled to an indoor event in Switzerland and won his first head-to-head with Tim Henman. In February in San Jose he played superbly against Andy Roddick and Lleyton Hewitt and won for the first time on the Tour.
In April, illness and a much-publicised bout of frustration (he swore at an umpire) ruined what should have been a glorious homecoming for Murray in the Davis Cup defeat by Serbia & Montenegro in Glasgow. Later that month he split with his coach, Mark Petchey, and has struggled to find his best form.
“I have a good shot at being one of the best in the world,” he explains, “but it’s going to take time because my game is quite complicated. I can do a lot of things but don’t really know how to put them all together yet. I got it right in San Jose against Hewitt and Roddick, but the key is to do it over and over again. I don’t quite have the consistency yet.
“The past few weeks have been quite difficult. I don’t have a coach just now, it’s my first stretch on clay on the main Tour and I’ve lost some close matches that I really could have won. Sometimes I have to remind myself to look at the positives and not the negatives so much. This time last year I was still playing in the juniors. To get to where I am has been a pretty big step, and regardless of whether I’m winning or losing, it’s just a good experience.”
After his first-round exit from Roland Garros last week, questions have been raised about his fitness. “I’m only 19,” he says. “I’m still growing. I’ve hardly played any five-set matches and it takes some getting used to. I’m working on it, and if I’m working on it, what else can you ask, instead of people just being negative about it.”
A story he tells when asked about his “most satisfying ever performance” is revealing. Last August, after an eight-week run of tournaments in the US, Murray came through the qualifiers at the US Open to secure a place in the first-round draw against Andrei Pavel of Romania. He won the first set, lost the second and third, won the fourth and was leading 2-1 in the fifth as he sat down for the change of ends.
He towelled his face and hands, took a swig from his sports drink and had just stood up to walk back on when he was suddenly, violently ill and vomited all over the court. A 15-minute delay ensued before the mess was cleared and Murray was ready to resume.
“I’d played eight weeks in a row in America and won two tournaments. I’d had a problem with my shoulder, come through qualifying at the US Open and was two sets to one down and came back after throwing up on court to win in five sets. Given the pressure I was under, and all that was being said about my fitness, that was pretty satisfying.”
“But you’re saying it was the most satisfying?” I confirm.
“Yeah.”
“Really? That’s a surprise.”
“Yeah.”
“Because people might say, ‘Surely beating Hewitt and winning his first tournament was more satisfying?’ ” “Well, satisfying in that I came off court and thought: ‘Yes’. I’d proved everybody wrong who said I was in bad shape.”
“Why do you listen to that?” “I haven’t read a newspaper article since the Davis Cup this year because of what was written. I don’t have respect for the majority of people in the press. I don’t respect their opinion. They tell me, ‘You have to trust us. We all want you to win and do well’ and then try to stitch me up.”
“How did they stitch you up?” “They said the team was going to get a $100,000 fine and a three-year ban. I said to the umpire, ‘You were f****** useless’, but they tried to say basically that I had called him a ***t. But what 19-year-old doesn’t swear? There’s 64 first-round matches here at Roland Garros and I guarantee you that in 20 of them, a player will tell the ref to f*** off. But they tried to make it into a huge story when it was really nothing, and after that I said, ‘No, I’m not reading it any more’.
“A few people said things to my coach before he started working with me. ‘He doesn’t work hard’, ‘He’s soft’, ‘He’s lazy’, ‘He’s this’, ‘He’s that’, and you ask, ‘Why do you listen to it?’ But every time I go into a press conference after losing a match in five sets, it’s: ‘The guy was stronger than you. You’re not fit enough’. And even when I’m not reading it, I know that’s what they’re writing. They try to make everything sensational. There has to be a huge headline: ‘Murray does this’. ‘Murray is a spoiled brat’. ‘This guy thinks Murray is an arse’.”
“It’s obvious that it really irritates you,” I suggest.
“Well, when I see what’s happened to Tim (Henman) over the years and the way they tried to stitch me in the Davis Cup — I mean, I was told by the doctor not to play, but I wanted to try and help my country, and instead of making me look like an arse, they could have tried to be more positive: ‘He was frustrated that he played badly. He was passionate in front of his home crowd, and, yeah, he swore at the referee, but big deal’ — it happens at every football match 10 times in every game, but because it’s tennis they pick up on it.”
“But isn’t that a consequence of life in the goldfish bowl?” “Yeah, maybe it is, but I just think basically . . . it’s like, I come into the press conference after the match and get asked by one of the journalists, ‘The general consensus is that if you don’t play tomorrow, the team is going to lose’. They put so much pressure on me. I was 18 at the time! It’s like with Rooney and the England team. They’re saying that if Rooney doesn’t play, England are going to lose, but what about Lampard, Gerrard, Owen, Beckham, Terry, Campbell, Cole! He is only 20! Stop rushing him!”
IT IS THE morning after our interview in Paris and I’m sitting on a Eurostar to London when my boss calls with a game he often plays called How Did It Go? A polite way of asking, “Will we be needing the lawyers this week?” “How did it go?” he asks.
“Yeah, it went well,” I reply.
“Tell me about him.”
“Intense, very intense . . . all through the interview he kept pulling at his neck like there was something grating on him — I thought at first it was me, but I think it was more of a reflection on the state of his life right now.”
“How do you mean?” “Well, he hasn’t found time to sit his driving test yet and he seems a bit frustrated that he hasn’t got a pad of his own.”
“Why doesn’t he buy a place?” “He’s not sure who his next coach is going to be or where he’s going to be based. The uncertainty is obviously troubling him a bit and affecting his game.”
“Anything else stand out?” “Yeah, his control was a real surprise. He went on a 29-minute rant about his contempt for the press, and though his fury was obvious, he never lost control. Every word was considered and delivered in a flat, calm, monotone voice. Remarkable. I’ve never witnessed that before.”
“Did you warm to him?” he asks.
“Good question, but I’m not quite sure how to answer it.”
“Explain.”
“Well, if I say, ‘No’, it implies I didn’t like him, and that wouldn’t be accurate or fair. But if I say, ‘Yes’, that wouldn’t be accurate either, because I actually didn’t warm to him, which is not to say that I don’t admire him. Am I making any sense?”
WHEN asked to explore the roots of his extraordinary ability with a racket, Murray directs you, somewhat surprisingly, not to the winning genes of his mother, a former Scottish champion, but to the pain of a childhood of losing to his older brother, Jamie.
“Not many people realise this, but up until the age of 14 my brother was rated the No 2 or 3 in the world. He beat (Gael) Monfils (Murray’s conqueror at Roland Garros) once at an under-13 tournament in France 6-0 6-1. He was up there with the best. Growing up, I was always trying to find a way to beat him.
“I hated losing. He’d make jokes and wind me up, but it was good for me, because although it’s good to learn how to win, it’s almost better to learn from defeat, and I think my brother was a huge reason why I’m doing well just now.
“The first time I ever beat him was in the final of an under-10 tournament in Solihull. It was my favourite tournament and I remember beating him on an artificial grass court 7-6 6-3. My mum had taken a group of Scottish players down and we were on our way back that night in a minibus when I started teasing my brother that I had beaten him.
“We were sitting opposite each other and I had my arm on the arm-rest when he decided he’d had enough. He shouted at me and pounded my hand with his fist. An hour later my finger was blue and black and purple. I woke up next morning and the nail was growing into my skin. I had to get an injection from the doctor, but my nail never recovered.”
By the age of 13 Murray was a double national champion, had won the Orange Bowl in Florida and replaced his older brother as the brightest prospect in tennis until suddenly, inexplicably, he fell out of love with the game.
“I had been to America and it was great, but I was missing out on doing things with my friends. I’d finish school and instead of going to my friend’s house to play, or to play football, I was going to the tennis court. I’d finish practising at 6.30, go home, do my homework, and that was it. You need time to spend with your friends and people your age and I just decided to take a break.”
Gairdoch United was the local football team. He signed up with a few friends, spent a couple of sessions at the Rangers school of excellence and decided after a couple of weeks to revert to tennis. “I’m not sure exactly why I stopped playing football. I remember my dad picking me up to drive me to training and saying, ‘Dad, I don’t want to go. I want to play tennis’.”
A year later, after a 2-1 defeat by Spain in the final of the European Cup, he returned to Dunblane screaming at his mother about a kid called Nadal: “Do you know who he practises with? Carlos Moya! Do you know who I practise with? My big brother! How am I supposed to compete with that!” He couldn’t, so they made the decision that he would leave school and join the Sanchez-Casal Academy in Barcelona.
“We lost the final rubber in doubles against Nadal and his partner,” he recalls, “and after the match we went bowling and I asked Nadal who he practised with. At that time Moya had been No 1 in the world and had won the French Open and I was feeling a bit jealous. The tennis was always more important for me than my schoolwork. It was a big gamble at that age, but it’s what I wanted to do and my parents supported me.”
Two years later, in September 2004, he won the US Open junior title in New York and knew that he had chosen well. “I remember standing on the top step of the main court on the night of the women’s final. There must have been 18,000 people there and I thought, ‘I want to play in front of crowds like these’. There is no better feeling than playing against someone 100% full-out and coming off the court after winning, knowing that you’ve given it everything and that they’ve given it everything. I don’t think tennis players get enough respect for how physically tough it is.”
Next week he returns to London for the packed galleries of Queen’s and another summer in the goldfish bowl. “This year I’ve got lucky because of the World Cup. If England do well, I think it will be a little more calm at Wimbledon, and if they don’t do well, the interest will be huge. There’s a lot of pressure, because you know you have to perform, and that’s tough, but it’s also very positive.
“I’ve been asked a few times: ‘How do you think you will do this year?’ and obviously I’d like to do better than last year, but it all depends on the draw. I’m not going to be seeded this year and could draw Federer in the first round, and not many people beat Federer, so . . . The most important thing for me is that my game keeps going in the right direction.”
“Do you find it difficult staying patient?” I ask. “No, I just think the media have to get a bit more perspective on it. I don’t think the way I play just now is good enough to win a Grand Slam, but if I keep working hard and find the right coach, the real results will start to happen when I’m 22 or 23. That’s when I’ll expect to have pressure on me at Wimbledon, but expecting me to do it at 19 is a bit unrealistic.”
