Not this year, then.
Again.
By all accounts poor Andy Murray played very well in
the Wimbledon men’s final, just not very well
enough to beat that elegant Swiss precision instrument disguised on a tennis court
as Roger Federer.
Will he get another chance? Of course he will: he just has to show up
next year – same month, same location – and start over.
But does Andy have it in him to beat the very best?
The very best at the moment are very good indeed, and
not just the aforementioned Swiss automaton, but also those other handy racket-wielders
Nadal and Djokovic – and possibly, by next year, some new aspiring genius with
an anagrammatic Slavic name. It may have
been Andy’s misfortune to have been born a wee bit too early to avoid the talented
trio currently ahead of him, but at any other time he might have run into
another wave of talent. Federer’s seven
years of Wimbledomination equals the reign of Sampras. And before Sampras there was Borg.
But for now we’re supposed to adore the hitherto dour,
shoulder-chipped Scot anyway. All Andy
had to do to win our hearts was not win the match but weep after losing it, thereby
demonstrating once more the adage that the Wimbledon
crowd, representing the nation – whatever that may be in this case – is just as
happy loving a runner-up as worshipping a winner.
Andy is in danger of becoming Tim Henman in a kilt. Let’s hope not, for his sake.
If nothing else, at least Alex Salmond was deprived of
an opportunity to gloat.
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