IT’S CRUDE, BUT JOYFUL... AN ART CRITIC’S VERDICT

YOU can’t seriously compare it to a Pollock or a Kandinsky, but Andy Murray is certainly making a different kind of contemporary art.

However crude, it’s joyful and there’s a strong, athletic abstract resemblance to a match – with the ball being shot from the background to the foreground.

It almost looks to me like he’s used the ball as a paint brush. It’s very vibrant, very energetic, very different. He was probably covered in paint by the end. Is it a piece of performance art? I tried to see if I could see the scuff of the ball and the heel of his shoe in the paint.

It could even be seen as a self-portrait in an abstract way because it represents him, the tennis player.

I could almost see him with racquet in one hand and his tennis ball covered in paint in the other, whacking a ball against the canvas. But we’ve got to be a little bit tongue-in-cheek. I wouldn’t imagine that he’s saying, ‘I’m an artist’. But perhaps his wife Kim Sears, who is a fantastic dog portraitist, has had a great influence on him.

If Pollock had picked up a tennis racquet we wouldn’t have said he’s going to win Wimbledon tomorrow. Maybe Andy was getting some aggression out, maybe he wanted to burn off some energy. I think he was just having a bit of fun. Let’s just hope he had plenty of plastic around him.