Scot must savour monumental achievement

Andy Murray’s towering climb to the top is a tribute to a rare strength of mind, cussedness and class

If Andy Murray was feeling a little light-headed at the magnitude of his feat yesterday, then it might have been explained by the rarefied air he was breathing. In mountaineering terms, he has not just pitched his flag at the summit of Everest, but reached it via the most fiendish route, in the thick of a blizzard, and in defiance of all who said it could not be done.

A little over 12½ years have elapsed since anybody besides Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal or Novak Djokovic, arguably the three greatest players ever to pick up a racket, stood atop the world rankings. That Murray should be the man to break the dynasty is a monumental feat.

As for the fixation with definitively anointing the alpha male or female of the sport, it is quite a recent fad. On the men’s tour, the rankings have existed only since 1973, generating such aberrations at No 1 as Marcelo Rios, the Chilean clay-court specialist famous for having such a pathological aversion to the Wimbledon lawns that he once declared: “Grass is for cows.”

But no matter how one enumerates Murray’s achievements, his preeminence at this juncture is beyond dispute.

He has broken the historic hex at the All England Club, twice, become the first player to win back-to-back Olympic men’s singles titles and bequeathed a Davis Cup triumph to a country that five years earlier had lost to Lithuania. Nobody deserves this more.

The wonder is that barely seven weeks ago, Murray had looked spent. There were, whether in his quarterfinal defeat by Kei Nishikori at the US Open or his ultimately futile Davis Cup slugfest with Juan Martín del Potro, creeping signs of listlessness. That he has mustered so emphatic a riposte, reeling off consecutive titles in Beijing, Shanghai, Vienna and perhaps now Paris, is testament to a cussedness of which even Djokovic would be proud.

The Serb, not given to bestowing compliments lightly – least of all to his arch-rival – describes Murray’s resurgence as “quite extraordinary”.

It is a gilded aristocracy, perhaps with the exception of Rios, who have held the mantle of No 1. Since the rankings were initiated, 92 players have won majors, but only 48 have occupied the highest perch in the game.

Djokovic, Federer, Pete Sampras, Ivan Lendl and Jimmy Connors all wore the accolade for more than four years apiece. For the very best, No 1 is not a transient state of being but an honour that they are ferociously territorial about defending.

Such is the flux at the pinnacle of men’s tennis, with Federer and Nadal fading into the sunset and Djokovic in a most peculiar funk, Murray could yet cement his own period of supremacy. But he should pause to consider the body of work that has brought him here. In his 799th match, and his 12th year as a professional, he has finally toppled the biggest beasts his sport has produced. Aptly, it was his mother Judy, posting a family photo of her then teenage son on the practice courts, who said it best yesterday.

“You’ve come a long way, baby,” she wrote.

Murray’s accomplishment is an affirmation of his sheer bloodymindedness. Sensitive and overtly emotional he might be, he has still learnt, partly from the mentoring of Lendl and also from bitter experience, how to heal the psychological scars. The catalogue of near-misses in finals – he has three victories from 11 finals in grand-slam tournaments, while Stanislas Wawrinka has three from three – would have broken lesser competitors.

Refusing to bow to the fatalistic logic that his eclipse by the FedererNadal-Djokovic triumvirate was just a misfortune of circumstance, he has used their example to enhance his game by astonishing degrees. In 2016, that faith has been repaid.

Djokovic is almost certain, like Serena Williams, to regard his dethroning as an affront and will surely redouble his efforts to retain the year-end No 1 spot at this month’s tour finals in London.

But he has slipped of late into a strange tailspin, exiting tamely from Wimbledon and the Olympics, before taking a spiritual guru with him in lieu of a coach.

Mentally, Djokovic, once tennis’s Mr Indestructible in this department, seems all at sea. Murray, who has another five years left at the top if he stays free of injury, should take his cue to make hay while the sun shines.

It was fitting reward yesterday, after so much toil and travel, that Murray ascended to the No 1 spot without having to strike a ball in anger, as his injured opponent Milos Raonic handed him a walkover.

The path to the highest peak, for so long impassable, had cleared at last. King of the hill, top of the heap, Murray owes it to himself to savour the view.

The catalogue of near-misses in grand-slam finals would have broken lesser competitors