Entertainment For Lively Minds
Andy Murray On Trial
Posted by John Medd on 22 June 2009 - 12:39pm.
Oh God! When will it end? When will it be safe to buy a national newspaper or switch on the radio or TV without seeing or hearing another clothesless Emperor (or at least one who is never photographed with a shirt on) being hyped/fawned over by one and all. Yes, I'm sure he is very good at batting the ball over the halfway net and I'm equally sure he loves his mother dearly, but come on, enough's enough.
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Ah, the irony
I personally wish Scotland well
in the tennis World Cup Final at Wimbledon.
:-)
He is actually quite good.
And his PE kit provider is quite groovy.
Why the negativity ?
He happens to be an excellent tennis player who is the 2nd highest ranked player in the tournament. Great chance to be Britain's first finalist since the 30s.
Emperor's new clothes ? No.
Come in, No. 2
Don't you think his chance of being Britain's first finalist since the '30s might be related to the current champion being forced to watch it on TV with an ice-pack on his knee?
Murraymania is the latest incarnation of the Virginia Wade Syndrome. They don't have to be much good (even if they are quite good, as he evidently is). They're famous just because they're British, by God, and they're there.
Britain is the most knee-jerk-jingoistic nation on earth when it comes to sport - or, indeed, leisure and entertainment in general. You only have to not live there to realise this.
Murray
Yes. Absolutely. But he's still the best male tennis player the UK has had in over 50 years (which is in itself tragic tragic), knee-jerk jingoism or not. And he does have a chance, unlike Henman, who was never good enough - his head-to-head record against Federer is better than anyone else's in world tennis. The Wimbledon grass favours the Swiss, though.
I can't believe I'm getting involved with this. I don't even like tennis.
Yup and last time Murray met Rafa in a grand slam...
in the US Open last year he won, so maybe he might have a mite of a chance if the current champion had been present.
Tragedy
The traditional crapness of British tennis players really is remarkable, yes. Especially if you consider that Rafa Nadal is Spain's second Wimbledon champion (Manolo Santana won it in 1966), and that nobody watches, plays or gives a tinker's cuss about tennis in Spain.
In fact, the same applies in other sports too. Nobody likes, plays or gives a tinker's cuss about golf in Spain either, but that hasn't stopped Sergio Garcia from now being ranked 3rd in the world - 16 places above Lee Westwood (AKA the Guy Garvey of Golf).
It's weird. The population of Spain is only two thirds the size of the UK's, and the upper-middle class - the sampling universe for such elite sports - is tiny. Yet it has consistently out-performed the UK in such sports (Ballesteros and Olazábal, Sanchez-Vicario and Martínez...), and more than held its own in others (Fernando Alonso, the Gasol brothers in the NBA...).
To that we can add to Spain's roster two of the Three Tenors (try naming just one British top-flight opera singer - sorry, but as colonials Dame Joan and Dame Kiri don't count) and the current principal ballerina at the Royal Ballet, and you do wonder why Britain has been so underwhelming in so many areas for so long if compared - and I say this with love and respect - with such a traditionally unambitious, half-arsed and fundamentally shambolic country as Spain.
A predictable pedant writes...
Garcia is 4th in the world, behind (Englishman) Paul Casey. Last year there were 12 players from the UK in the World Top 100, and five Spanish. Or to look at it another way, 28 UK major wins against seven. Even Spain's best golfer (Ballesteros) is behind the UK's (Faldo) in most meaningful stats (weeks ranked number one, major wins). The sampling group may be smaller in Spain, but "out-performing" is a bit strong.
You're quite right about tennis though. I imagine that Spanish coaching is better, that clay being a more popular surface worldwide helps, and that lots of other factors apply apart from just the numbers who take part. Otherwise New Zealand wouldn't be the World's best rugby team (apart from at World Cups, before anyone says anything).
A humbled pedant retorts
Oops. I forgot about Casey. Yet despite Faldo's one more major, Ballesteros's total of 90 pro-tournament wins surely overshadows Faldo's comparatively paltry 40. And the clincher: American Express never hired Faldo to implore us nebber to leab home weethout eet.
I imagine you're right about the coaching, although the figure of the Anglo-American pushy parent (Hamilton's dad, McEnroe's dad) is much less severe here - people generally want their talented kids to be kids first and foremost, and homework is always given priority over training.
The opera and dance thing, the more I think about it, is very strange, though. As prestige venues, Barcelona's Liceo and Madrid's Teatro Real can't compete with Covent Garden or Sadler's Wells, and the training ground for opera, zarzuela, is in an even sorrier state than G&S/operetta in the UK.
It is - as the great philospher Willcox expressed it - a mystery.
Opera Singers
Archie,
Sir John Tomlinson (Bass)
& Bryn Terfel (Bass Baritone)
are both top flight British Opera singers.
Both held in high regard for their singing
of Wagner.
ooh get me !
Try the USA
I live here.
Only in the UK is there dislike or even hate of top athletes, rock stars, tv personalities etc merely because they happen to be good at what they do. Other countries celebrate success of their icons, many people in the UK can't wait for them to fail.
I would agree
We were once good at ice skating (Curry, Cousins, Torvill & Dean). Since we've returned to being crap at it nary a mention! (watch what happens when Hoy etc retire).
Murray's a contender alright
Murray is closer to the genuine article than Tiger Tim or Rusedski was.
I think he will a Grand Slam event or possibly several in his career. Grass suits his game but it may be another one he wins first. The weight of expectation may get to him for Wimbledon at this stage.
Federer's response to the remark that Murray has a good record against him - "but not in Finals" - tells you a lot about Federer's steel but may also be sufficient to stoke Murray's fire further
Exactly right
Well said.
Don't really
have any problem with two weeks of the media full of Andy Murray - goodness knows we get enough about bloomin' football for the other 50 weeks of the year.
I Love Wimbledon
Just watching Benneteau v Djorkovic turning into a classic
As for Andy Murray we should all get behind him we have a genuine contender on our hands for a change
British if he wins
Scottish if he loses.
By the way, do we always have to knock Tim Henman by association? Ok, he didn't win a Slam but actually not many do...to be ranked fourth in the world for the length of time he was is pretty decent. He was well respected by the people who actually know, the other players, and it was just unfortunate that he route to a genuine chance of winning Wimbledon was for most of the time blocked by the second best player of all time. Sorry to go on, it just irks me that people take the ill-informed option of slagging him off.
And not to the guy up the page - Virginia Wade was pretty useful too - Wimbledon, Australian and US champion in her time.
That old chestnut again...
Well, the Radio 4 news was calling him Scottish today. Does that mean they know something about his chances that we don't? Or perhaps they're hedging their bets in case they need to repeat the news report once he's lost?
Agree on Henman though - decent player. Not the best in the world, but then how many are?
Good luck
I'm not a great tennis fan, but whenever I see Murray I cannot help,for a moment, but see the image a small boy hiding under a desk as some howling madman guns down his school fellows in the school at Dunblane. Whatever he achieves, what he does in the world is life enhancing and positive in my booklet, and I wish him well.
To be fair to Murray
He doesn't really court the media frenzy.
In fact, he's gone out of his way to avoid the whole annual hoo-hah.
As a 15-y-o he departed these shores to learn his tennis trade in Spain and freely admits that his best chance of winning a major is the US Open.
He also admits that his run to the US Open final last year is a far better indicator of his ability to win that the paltry victory at Queen's Club the other week.
Compare the Murray-mania to the one that accompanies England at every major football tournament and it's mild, by comparison.
Good luck to him - I'll be cheering him on, because he's an example of that true British sporting tradition - talented, cocking a snook at the media and works bloody hard at it.
It's exactly why I like Faldo and also the likes of Daley Thompson - who did things their own way and didn't toe the 'party' line.
Murray Wins In Straight Sets Shock
Against Gulbis
Well Done Andy
keep it up