Murray Mania
Andy Murray is all over the minds of the British Tennis fans as he is defending his title at London’s Queen Club for the AEGON Championship. After beating Ivan Navaro, Murray is now in round three and is well on his way to go further if he keeps himself in the same form. Murray is the new sensation after "Tiger Tim" and "Henman Hill"; as he becomes Britain’s only hope for a title once again. It is all happening at an important time when tennis comes to its traditional home of grass-courts.
The 23-year-old Scotsman will be carrying Britain’s hopes into Wimbledon as well and it all depends on his performance at the Queen’s Club London. Success at AEGON Championship will definitely give him a massive morale boost as he had been out of the scene during all the recent tournaments ever since he lost in the Australian Open. He was ousted during the qualifying rounds of French Open, which might have acted as a blessing in disguise. He rightly used that early exit to come back to London and practice on grass. For him the whole frenzy surrounding him does not affect at all and it will not derail him in his quest for a first grand slam success.
Andrew "Andy" Murray (born 15 May 1987) is a Scottish professional tennis player and current British Number 1 and World Number four and is realistically Britain's only contender for singles glory in Queen’s and Wimbledon. He is more like now-retired Tim Henman, who was always at the semi finals stage but never made it to any finals during his whole career. There were always expectations and hopes attached to him from the British public and so is the same case with Andy Murray’s. Every time a tournament starts specially one that is played in Britain, the hopes are automatically attached to the British player.
So Britain will be in the grip of same enthusiasm towards the home star Andy Murray who is first on his way to defend the AEGON Championship and then he will be competing in Wimbledon. Wimbledon is starting on 21 June and the star is already in the third round of Queen’s. So if the Queen’s defence goes well then Murray is in best position to march ahead towards Wimbledon with great confidence and a title under his belt. But if this turns out to be a bad time for Murray then the chances of a Wimbledon upset by the Scotsman are pretty slim.
Last year Murray won the AEGON Championship and also reached the semi-finals of Wimbledon. However it was bad luck that he lost it to the eventual runner-up Andy Roddick. Murray is aware that this year there is more pressure on him to perform and he is under no illusions that his task will be any easier this season.
The big question now is that, can Murray tread on the footsteps of Fred Perry to win a grand slam and that too on home ground? This will be a historic event that a British player would win after nearly 70 years since 1936. Murray has seen that historic moment from a very close point as he reached the finals of two grand slams and both times his dreams were shattered by no one other than Roger Federer. First it was 2008 U.S. Open and then the Australian Open earlier this year.
After losing to Federer in Melbourne in the final of Australian Open he has been on the lowest of lows of his career. This losing streak continued to the French Open where he lost to Tomas Berdych in the early rounds.
Murray’s mother Judy mentored him throughout his career as he started playing tennis when he was about four years old. At the age of 17 he won the juniors at the U.S. Open. Soon after he was mixing it with elite of the world game on the ATP Tour.
Initially Murray was quite aggressive on the court but with the passage of time he developed a more mature approach towards his game and channelled his aggression to a more positive effect. He says he still hates defeat and finds it hard to deal with it and he is hopeful that he would not be dealing with defeat at either Queen's or Wimbledon. It is possible that through his newfound confidence he would be able to cement his place in tennis history as the player to end Britain's grand slam drought.
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