SPOTY 2013 profile: Andy Murray

The Scot is runaway favourite to land this year’s crown after ending Britain’s 77 year wait for a male singles Wimbledon title.

Andy Murray has dreamed of winning Wimbledon all his life.

He did so again in the early hours of the morning of July 7. Only something was not quite right.

On the opposite side of the net in the Scot’s dream that night was world No 45 Radek Stepanek, Sometimes, as is the nature of nocturnal fantasies, his opponent became world No 109 Denis Kudla.

If either of those men had actually stood between Murray and him becoming the first British player to win the championship for 77 years, he would have probably woken up pretty confident.

Instead, the player in his way was Novak Djokovic, the best player in the world and six-time Grand Slam winner.

But, playing in on-court temperatures that peaked at just under 50C, Murray swept aside the superfit Serb for an amazing straight sets victory.

When he found himself serving for the title at 5-4 with three match points, though, everything started to unravel.

Djokovic pulled it back to deuce. The doubts began to creep in.

Says Murray: “I saw my arm and hand shaking. I’ve never had that before so I kind of realised that I was feeling the nerves a bit.

“You can imagine, with everything that is going on, when you look down and your hand is actually shaking, it doesn’t help things.”

Djokovic then had three chances to break Murray’s serve and turn the match on its head.

“If I had lost that game, I think mentally it would have been very, very tough to come back from,” Andy adds. “In that last game, physically I was really struggling. It was so hot, I literally could barely breathe.”

Murray hung in and earned a fourth match point. He hit a huge serve, the Serb’s return looped up and dropped on the baseline. Murray pounded it back and Djokovic netted.

“The next few minutes were just a bit of a blur,” says Murray. “I didn’t know exactly where I was or who I was going to, or what I was doing.”

He clambered through the crowd to the players’ box, where he embraced his coach Ivan Lendl.

“We’d hugged a few times but he doesn’t often do that in public,” smiles Andy. “I don’t know how much he enjoyed it!”

His team and girlfriend Kim were next. His mother, Judy, was sitting a few rows back in the crowd.

“Luckily, I didn’t completely forget about her,” he said. “I saw her when I lost one of the match points she kind of stood up and was sort of saying: ‘It’s OK, it’s OK.’

“I could just see in her face that it wasn’t OK at that moment. She was struggling to keep it all together.”

Murray tried to follow his Wimbledon triumph with the defence of his US Open title but, after quarter-final elimination, he decided that he would have an operation on his back to put an end to the discomfort he’d been suffering on and off for two years.

He completed his rehabilitation at Chelsea’s Cobham training complex close to his Surrey home, then flew off to Miami for his annual winter training camp.