‘Now that I’m older I enjoy my moments’
As you get older, you come closer toward the end of your career, you realize how much you love what you are doing and how lucky you’ve been to travel around the world.
We’ve got a little bit of family history to the hotel. My brother got married there, and my gran and grandfather had their 40th wedding anniversary there.
I loved coming here (New York) as a junior. We didn’t get to stay in a hotel as nice as the Langham, but we got to play at the big courts at Flushing Meadows.
When I won the U.S. Open, my first Grand Slam, I was so unbelievably nervous. I didn’t want to go on the court. But I managed to win after 4 hours and 54 minutes.
This has been an undeniably frustrating year for tennis player Andy Murray, at least on the court. Because of injuries, Murray had to skip the Australian and French Opens, as well as Wimbledon. And when the former No. 1 did play the U.S. Open in August, he did so as the 382ndranked player in the world and lost in the second round.
But outside tennis, life seems good.
Murray, 31, has two daughters, both under age 3, with his wife, Kim. He runs a management company to mentor young tennis players. He owns a five-star hotel called Cromlix not far from Dunblane, Scotland, his hometown. He also travels regularly, documenting his journeys on Instagram for his 1.5 million followers.
“As you get older, you come closer toward the end of your career, you realize how much you love what you are doing and how lucky you’ve been to travel around the world and go to these amazing cities and play tennis in front of these huge enthusiastic crowds,” he said. “When I was younger, I had so much pressure and stress on myself, I couldn’t enjoy the moment as much as I should have. Now that I’m older, I’ve appreciated it.”
Murray was certainly relaxed at the Langham Hotel in New York two days before this year’s Open began. He was playing Ping-Pong with his brother, Jamie, and excited about his dinner that evening at Zuma, a Japanese restaurant in Midtown.
The following are edited excerpts from a conversation with him.
You’ve always said you love New York because you’ve had some of your biggest tennis moments here.
I loved coming here as a junior. We didn’t get to stay in a hotel as nice as the Langham, but we got to play at the big courts at Flushing Meadows. I remember watching the women’s finals there. I sat right up at the top, because it was the only place I could get tickets. After seeing that, I always wanted to come play matches here as a professional.
You have spend so much of your life staying in hotels. Why did you want to own one of your own?
We’ve got a little bit of family history to the hotel. My brother got married there, and my gran and grandfather had their 40th wedding anniversary there. It was about a year or 18 months after my brother got married when my mom called me and said the hotel is on the market, the business is gone, it needs a lot of renovation.
It was one of those “should we, should we not” things. I spoke to a couple of people who I work with who said it was going to be really tough, a big investment and quite a big risk. But I thought it could be really cool and something that is really important to me. I’m really happy we did it.
What recommendations do you have for visitors coming there?
The scenery in that part of Scotland is great. You can go for walks and hikes. A lot of people come to visit because there are really great golf courses around there as well. I personally don’t hike because of my hip, but when we were kids, when we lived there we always grew up with a dog, and we used to walk dogs around there.
This summer you’ve started using Instagram more on your travels. Why do you feel so comfortable sharing on Instagram?
I used to do Twitter a lot more, and Twitter is quite a brutal place to be sometimes. You have to be careful on Twitter, but I enjoy Instagram a lot. It’s fun; I’m quite a visual person myself.
It’s interesting because the more that I post stuff, the more people come up to me and say, “I follow your Instagram.” The last three or four weeks, people have come up to me and said, “We enjoy it; you have to keep doing it.”