AM I JEALOUS OF ANDY? HONESTLY? NEVER EVER
Jamie Murray lives in the shadow of his record-breaking kid brother... but he’s still his biggest fan and desperate to get a British Davis Cup triumph on their CVs
WILLIE and Judy Murray have two remarkable sons. An awful lot is known about one of them. Not so much about the other. Andy is the champ, Jamie is defined by superficial impressions: the nice one, the smiley one, the happy one, Jelena Jankovic’s partner that time at Wimbledon, the one who lives in the shadow of a sibling.
Sometimes, Jamie is met with sympathy because he is the tennisplaying elder brother of one of the greatest players who has ever lived. Sometimes, he is met with disdain. Sometimes, people speak to him because they want to know about his brother and turn him into an interview with Andy by proxy.
Well, that’s starting to change. It has got to the stage where Jamie is a tennis hero in his own right. He won the Wimbledon mixed doubles with Jankovic in 2007 and reached the men’s doubles final at both Wimbledon and the US Open with Australian John Peers this season.
Next month, he will be a crucial member of the Great Britain team that plays Belgium in the Davis Cup final in Ghent attempting to win the event for this country for the first time since 1936. Like his brother, he is a tennis history-maker now.
There’s something else, too. Something more. Something better. As Jamie approaches 30 as one of the world’s top 10 doubles players, his story represents a triumph that is every bit as inspiring as Andy’s. His story is an account of the victory of a generous spirit.
His story is that of a fine player and an even better man. It is the story of someone who has never allowed jealousy to taint his thoughts and who speaks of Andy, who is one year his junior, neither with reserve nor envy but only with unabashed pride and affection when a lesser person might have let resentment burrow its way into his soul.
‘I guess there’s a lot of jealousy in the world, isn’t there,’ says Jamie. ‘People are always looking at what other people have got, not what they have got themselves. They can lose sight of that.
‘People ask me that all the time: “Does it annoy you that your brother’s so much better than you?” Or: “You’re rubbish, your brother’s great, how did that happen?”
‘Well I know I’m not rubbish but that’s not the point. I’m proud of him for what he’s doing. I’d much rather he be doing what he’s doing than that he were on the dole, struggling to do anything with his life. I would choose what he is doing every day of the week.
‘I have seen first hand all the sacrifices and the hard work and the dedication that he has put in to get everything that he has got from his life and his sport so far. He deserves it a million times over.
‘If I wasn’t happy with my life and I was really struggling, maybe it would be different. I don’t know. I have always been his biggest fan and I have always wanted the best for him and that will never change.
‘Jealousy? I can honestly say never. Even when he was starting to do great things at 17 or 18 and I was not really having any career yet, never once was I thinking: “I wish that was me” or “He’s so lucky” or “Why is that not happening to me?” Never once felt like that. It’s your brother. He’s your blood.’
Maybe most brothers would feel the same but it represents a triumph of the spirit. There was a time, you see, when Jamie was the one marked for stardom. When he was a kid, he was the best Under-12 in the world. In that age group, he got to the final of the Orange Bowl, in Florida. He travelled Europe, winning tournaments. He was the special one. He was the golden child.
Then, when he was 12, he was sent away from his home in Dunblane, away from his family, away from Andy, who was becoming a promising player, too, to The Leys School in Cambridge so he could attend a Lawn Tennis Association course and continue to improve.
Except Jamie didn’t improve. He went backwards. He lasted eight months and then came home. ‘They ruined him,’ Andy would say a few years ago, furious at the way his brother was treated. Jamie says that is harsh. He will not criticise the coach in charge. He says that the guy has taken enough criticism and blaming the LTA is the easy option.
‘It was a really rushed decision to go to Cambridge,’ says Jamie. ‘I was supposed to go to Bisham Abbey and train there and be part of that set-up and then a couple of weeks before I was supposed to start, they shut the whole thing down. They were starting up these other centres and Cambridge was the venue for my age group. I went with four or five other boys.
‘It didn’t work out well for me at all. Being away from home was a huge thing and because I was the youngest in my age group who went to play tennis, I wasn’t at the school. I went to the school down the road, which was a feeder school for The Leys. So I was away from the other players. I stayed in a boarding house across the road whereas they were fully immersed in the school. That was difficult. The coaching didn’t agree with me and the whole thing spiralled. That whole experience set me back a lot.’
HE adds: ‘But it was a small amount of time. It was only eight months. It shouldn’t have affected me as much as it did. It took me a lot longer than it should have done to get over it but experiences can be a lot stronger when you are younger and have a more lasting effect.
‘I stopped enjoying the sport. I stopped playing for a few months to see if I wanted to go back to it. I decided I did but I was never really the same player that I was before Cambridge. It wasn’t even that other kids were improving. It was just that I was going backwards and that was difficult to handle, especially as a young kid. It was a big hit.
‘That’s probably the only thing I would change in my life. I should have been able to find a way back or at least get back on the right track but I let it overcome me.’
Even though his forehand, once his strongest shot, had been compromised by his time in Cambridge, Jamie was still one of the top 50 juniors in the world deep into his teens but when Andy went to Barcelona, aged 15, to live and play at the Sanchez-Casal Academy, the balance of power changed.
‘We were apart and doing our separate things,’ says Jamie. ‘So it wasn’t like there was a stage where he started to beat me. But, obviously, by the time he finished in Spain when he was 17, I knew there was a new pecking order.’
Jamie is on the right track now, though, on and off the court. Married for five years to Alejandra, he sits in the autumn sunshine near Putney Bridge in London, and radiates contentment. He is an amiable, open, trusting man who puts those around him at their ease.
‘I’m happy in my life,’ he says. ‘I’ve got an amazing wife, my career’s going up, I’m happy with where I am in my life, who I’ve got around me. I enjoy my life. I’m very fortunate. I’m happy in my own skin.’
His career has taken a different route to Andy’s but as a leading doubles player, Jamie plays many of the same tournaments. He and Peers have had a brilliant season and Jamie is seventh in the rankings.
His success is built on ‘old school’ talents. He is a superb serve-volleyer, now a dying art. He does not have a power-based game but has a wonderful touch at the net. ‘My game is not necessarily the most orthodox stuff you see,’ says Jamie.
‘A few years ago, I got caught up with trying to serve bigger and hit big off the ground but it wasn’t my style. I saw the guys who were top 10 and they all seemed to have a big serve and nail the ball off the return and I felt I needed to develop that. Trying to make that happen probably cost me a couple of years.
‘The last few years, I have accepted my game style for what it is. Master things you’re good at. I’m sure there are not that many guys that enjoy playing me because it’s different from a lot of guys that are out there doing the same thing every day.’
DOUBLES is a volatile world, dependent on personal chemistry as well as ability. Eight years ago, Jamie formed a successful pairing with Eric Butorac but when that partnership dissolved, he struggled to gel with anyone until he got together with Peers. ‘It is difficult to
make a partnership work because it is like any relationship,’ says Jamie. ‘We are spending more time with our doubles partners than we are with our wives or girlfriends. The more you spend time with someone, the more you pick up on annoying habits.
‘Things start to grate over time. That can cause frustration and resentment. That’s another reason why people are keen to change.’
Jamie, like Andy, does not like to talk about the school massacre at Dunblane that killed 16 pupils and their Year One teacher. Like Andy, Jamie was there that day. He was 10 and his classroom was in a prefab building 50 feet from the gym.
He heard sounds coming from there that he now knows were gun- shots. He heard three noises but in no rhythm or sequence. Soon after, the assistant head rushed in and spoke to Jamie’s teacher. She returned ashen-faced and led the children away.
Jamie caught sight of her for the first time in many years when he was playing golf in Dunblane recently and the painful memories flooded back.
He knows, though, that what Andy and he have achieved in tennis has allowed people to think of Dunblane in a different way.
‘I don’t like to talk about it out of respect for the families involved,’ says Jamie. ‘Andy and I are both very proud that we have been able to allow people to talk about Dunblane for other reasons. Now when people talk about Dunblane, they talk about Andy.’ When Andy won Wimbledon in 2013, that civic pride came bursting through.
WHEN Jamie and Andy won a critical five-set, four hour doubles match against Sam Groth and Lleyton Hewitt i n the Davis Cup semi-final against Australia in Glasgow last month, the fervour was redoubled.
‘It was brilliant to be able to do that with him,’ says Jamie. ‘Every time you look across the court, you see Andy with you. And you are fighting to get the win for the team but for each other as well.
‘I want the team to win the final next month so badly but I want Andy to have that on his CV. He has done so many amazing things. If he had not been playing in this era, he would have won about 20 Grand Slams.
‘Winning the Davis Cup is right up there in terms of winning Grand Slams. We all want to do it for him. You can see how much it means to him when he plays for the team in Davis Cup.’
After the doubles match against Australia, Andy put it this way. ‘We stuck together,’ he said. ‘Like brothers should.’
And so they did. And so they always have. You know that about Jamie Murray now. A brother to value, a son to be proud of, a man to admire.