Andy Murray
Two-time Wimbledon Champion Double Olympic Champion US Open champion .... and now
He’s come a long way since he first appeared in the Stirling Observer sports pages.
Who would have thought that in those distant days when Judy Murray would send us news of her boys Jamie and Andrew that almost 20 years later, both of them would have climbed to the top of the world tennis ladder.
Tim Henman and Greg Rusedski carried the GB flag in tournaments around the world with the former’s highlights being six Grand Slam semifinals and the latter a US Open final defeat by Aussie Pat Rafter in 1997.
Around that time, we began to hear of a young lad from Dunblane called “Andrew Murray”.
He won his first tournament as an under-10 junior at the Dunblane Sports Club and picked up the Wilkinson Sword Trophy for Achievement at the Scottish Lawn Tennis Association Awards back in 1999 at the tender age of 11.
It wasn’t until he had spent a few years in Barcelona that he began to feature on the sports pages again in junior events, culminating in his first Grand Slam win.
In 2004, the then 17 year-old beat Ukrainian Sergei Stakhovsky in straight sets 6-4, 6-2 to twin the US Open junior singles, the first Brit ever to win the title at junior level, joining some of the biggest names in tennis history such as Pat Cash, Stefan Edberg and Andy Roddick. At the time, the Observer reported: A spokesperson for Bridge of Allan Sports Club, where Andrew is a member, said everyone there was “delighted” at his win.
“We are very pleased for him and his family,” they said, “It’s great to see him doing so well. This is just the latest in a growing number of victories for him. We’re sure he has a very bright future in front of him.” How right they were! His success in the US Open final saw him elevated to the GB Davis Cup squad for the matches against Luxembourg and Austria.
But it was not until the tie against Israel in 2005 that he made history by becoming GB’s youngest ever player when he and David Sherwood teamed up in the doubles.
His singles star rose quickly and in 2005 he played his first ATP seniors event at the Queen’s Club, beating Spaniard Santiago Ventura in his first match 6-1, 6-2.
Later he said: “This was a very important match for me — one of the biggest of my career.
“I think it’s fair that there’s a lot of expectation because after Tim (Henman) and Greg (Rusedski) there’s not so many players coming through.