In Praise Of Andy Murray

Not because the Scotsman has won the Wimbledon men’s title or because he had a Frenchwoman (Amelie Mauresmo) as his coach before that, but because he is a “character” in a sport fast losing them. Tennis has had clowns before, like Jimmy Connors and Ilie Nastase and John McEnroe, but none of them ever had to deal with Ivan Lendl as coach. To Andy Murray’s credit, he has been able to retain his cranky, cantankerous ways despite The Iceman, who was renowned, then as now, for never revealing his pearly whites. In their gritty workmanlike ways, mentor and disciple are not far apart, but together with Novak Djokovic, Murray ens­ures that tennis remains a sport played by humans, not by robots whose every action has been plotted on a computer screen the night before. And then, there is his wife Kim, who gave an earful to an opponent at the Australian Open last year: “F****** have that you flashy Czech, you flashy f***.” Thankfully, that Czech wasn’t Lendl.