Andy puts tennis rivalry to one side as brother Jamie basks in limelight
BRITAIN finally got to celebrate a home-grown Wimbledon winner yesterday as Jamie Murray won the mixed doubles yesterday.
However, it emerged his brother did not watch all of the title winning match.
Their mother, Judy, also revealed that the competition between 31-year-old Jamie and 30-year-old Andy has always “been a challenge”. In an interview, Ms Murray said when the pair would play each others as youngsters she always hoped Jamie, as the older son, would beat Andy to follow the “natural order”.
She added: “But it was very tough because all Andy wanted to do was beat Jamie, and still does.”
Yesterday Jamie and his tennis partner Martina Hingis were crowned mixed doubles champions, beating Heather Watson and Henri Kontinen 6-4. 6-4.
But his younger brother Andy allowed Jamie a chance to enjoy the limelight, choosing to watch from the locker room. It is a remarkable comeback for 36-year-old Hingis, 20 years after she won her first singles title aged just 16.
Andy, who is known to often miss his brother’s matches because he reportedly finds them too nerveracking, opted to watch away from the glare of the media on Centre Court.
Asked whether his brother had watched his victory, Jamie said: “Yeah, I just saw him there. He said he came, like, in the middle of the first set. I think he just waited in the lockers.”
He added: “He said he didn’t watch it. I don’t know if he snuck a few points in or not.”
A day before, Andy had posted a picture of the view from a plane, amid speculation he had travelled abroad to receive treatment for the hip injury.
His decision to remain in the background for his brother’s Wimbledon final may have been down to a difficult moment for Jamie in 2006, where his final on the Futures circuit in Sheffield was overshadowed by Andy’s first ever ATP title the day before.
“It was a huge thing for Jamie,” Ms Murray told the Sunday Herald, “and we arrived and we were thinking – why are Sky TV here, they never come to these little events? They were there because Andy had won this huge thing and the closest they were going to get was Jamie – and they completely ruined his day. I felt awful for him.”