The highlight of every British tennis fan's summer begins today, with SW19 playing host to the iconic grass court tournament. Get prepared to see shots of perfectly lined grass, strawberries and cream (whenever it happens not to be raining) and explanations of how the roof on Centre Court closes (when it inevitably does rain). As with every year, the British fans search in desperation for a potential winner from this small island. And with every year in recent memory, we have been disappointed. However, there are mutterings that perhaps this could be the year when the duck could be broken, when a British player could lift the iconic trophy.
I am, of course, referring to Andy Murray. After a superb second half of last season, where he won the gold medal at the Olympics, and then Britain's first Grand Slam for 65 years at the US Open, the world number 2 will fancy his chances at his home event. This is also reinforced by his devastating defeat in the Wimbledon final last campaign, where all will remember his emotional commiseration speech. However, I personally, despite being a tennis fan from Britain, will not be supporting Andy Murray in the next two weeks any more than any other player. This blog post will explain why I feel this way, and what we should expect to see over the next two weeks.
Getting straight to the crux of my argument regarding Andy Murray, I often feel as though the vast majority of fans are being hypocrites (and in recent months, glory supporters) when they blindly follow the world number 2 in Grand Slams. One of my early memories of Andy Murray is an interview conducted with him as a youngster, asking him about his future. One of the questions posed to him was: 'Would you consider yourself British?'. His answer: 'Scottish first, and British second'. Whilst I have nothing against the Scots, or any other nationality for that matter, the fact remains that Wimbledon is a tennis tournament held in England, a sport (and a country) that the Scots seemingly have little interest in. Therefore, English candidates should be the only ones that should receive whole-hearted backing from the home support. However, here is where we see aspects of glory supporting. After the decline of Tim Henman, it was only the Dunblane born youngster that showed any promise of winning tournaments. And so Britain followed him, dubbing him with the rather unfair tag of 'if he wins he's British, if he loses he's Scottish'. This unfairness is just one of a number of reasons why I will not be giving him special treatment.
For those of you who are now thinking 'but he's British', I have three further arguments for you. 1) In no other sport do we apply the same principle. For example, we do not support all the home nations in the 6 Nations rugby or World Cup football (in fact we often directly oppose them). 2) Scotland may not be 'British' for much longer, with a referendum on the union scheduled to take place next year. And if the vote is 'yes' to leave, will fans abandon Murray then for being 'not British'? (I doubt it due to his success-another piece of evidence of glory supporting). And 3) The idea that he identifies with Britain as a union is challenged somewhat by his complete disdain for the Davis Cup in recent years, which has seen the national side slip down the rankings dramatically. If he really believed himself to be British, rather than the Scottish nationality he claims to put first, he would participate in these events. I must reiterate, Murray is doing nothing wrong by identifying himself as Scottish. All I intend by this post is to challenge the assertion that English fans should follow him blindly.
Another reason I will be remaining neutral is to do with the commentary on Murray's matches. Again, not the fault of the player himself, as he can do little to affect the commentary of the BBC, but I still find it irritating. I have found a remarkable bias in play in all matches involving Murray, where commentators tend to exaggerate how well the Scot is playing, and often keeping him in matches long after he has effectively lost them. Often they just flat-out lie. Lines like 'Murray has dominated the first set, and been unfortunate on the important points' used to be commonplace when playing Federer, Nadal and Djokovic, and losing the set comprehensively. It is this bias that, perhaps unfairly, has led me to become more and more annoyed at the coverage, often watching on mute, and has caused me to become a tennis neutral.
Finally, having explained that I have become a neutral, mainly due to things beyond Murray's control, I therefore follow those people whose game I find most entertaining, and whose personality is most likeable. Whilst Andy can certainly claim to have as entertaining a game as many of the players around him, he lacks massively on the second half of the sentence. This is sort of confirmed by the fact that the BBC felt the need to run a biographical piece with the world number 2 this week, attempting to dispel the 'dour Scot' look that he so often carries. I am sure that, away from the court, he is exactly the same as any other normal person, with a good sense of humour (i.e. normal human emotions), making the documentary, in my opinion, fairly irrelevant. On court, he comes across as moany, grumpy and occasionally petulant, in complete contrast to the likes of Federer and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, who are both highly likeable figures. Whilst Murray's on-court demenour has improved in recent years, if I were to support anyone this campaign at SW19, it would be someone who had a nice on and off court personality.
As for what we can expect over the next two weeks, I shall sum it up briefly: A Federer early masterclass, slow starts from Nadal and Djokovic, perhaps a couple of shocks along the way, pretty much a pre-determined women's final, with Serena and Sharapova looking strong, and hopefully, the nicest people win, and not necessarily the fans' hypocritical choice.
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