Murray: Tennis lets me escape the dark past of Dunblane

Throughout his tennis career, Scot Andy Murray has shied away from discussing the emotional trauma he suffered in 1996, when a gunman burst into his primary school in Dunblane and murdered 17 people. But a new documentary,

Resurfacing, has finally tackled this sensitive question. In a tearful voice note left for film-maker Olivia Cappuccini, Murray revealed he saw his tennis career as an escape from the darkness of his past.

“You asked me a while ago why tennis was important to me,” Murray said, in an audio clip that provides the emotional heart of the film. “I had the thing that happened at Dunblane, when I was around nine. For all the kids there, it would be difficult for different reasons.

“The fact we knew the guy, we went to his kids’ club, he had been in our car, we had dropped him off at train stations and things. Within 12 months of that happening, our parents got divorced.

“It was a difficult time that, for kids; to see that and not quite understand what is going on. And then six to 12 months after that, my brother also moved away from home.”

There is a pause, as Murray’s voice cracks with emotion.

“He went away to train to play tennis. We used to do everything together. When he moved away, that was also quite hard for me. Around that time and after that, for a year or so, I had lots of anxiety that came out when I was playing tennis. When I was competing, I would get bad breathing problems.

“Tennis is an escape for me in some ways. Because all of these things are stuff that I have bottled up. I don’t know because we don’t talk about these things. The way that I am, on the tennis court, I show some positive things about my personality and I also show the bad things and things I really hate. Tennis allows me to be that child, that has all of these questions. That’s why tennis is important to me.”

Murray explained yesterday that Cappuccini had been close to him for four or five years, as the fiancee of his brother-in-law Scott Sears.

Even so, it had taken him months to open up to her about the connection between his passion for tennis and these frightening times in his life.

“As things were getting worse,” Murray said, with regard to his chronic hip trouble, “it started to look like I was coming towards the end of playing. I was trying to explain why this was so difficult for me.

“In December 2018, she was there with us in Miami and I was like: ‘Look, I am not talking to you about this to your face. One, I feel a bit embarrassed about it. And two, I have not really spoken to anyone that much about it ever’.”

Cappuccini, who attended the film’s premiere in London on Monday night, admitted yesterday that she was surprised to be allowed to run such personal material in her film.