Tuesday, 11 September 2012

Olympic Gold to US Open Champion: Andy Murray becomes a British great.


Two months on from the tears on Centre Court, Andy Murray wakes up today as the Olympic and US Open Champion 2012 after an epic triumph over Serbian nemesis Novak Djokovic at Flushing Meadows. The wait is finally over, all 76 years of it since the legendary Fred Perry became the last Brit to win a tennis Grand Slam singles event. After 5 final appearances it was beginning to look like Murray was destined to be the ‘nearly man’ of tennis, particularly with the fluctuating dominance of Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and Djokovic showing no signs of waning. However, buoyed by his Team GB Olympic heriocs, Murray took the fight to Djokovic from the off, winning the first two sets 7-6 and 7-5 in front of a gushing crowd which included Scottish legend Alex Ferguson.
One thing we’ve come to expect from Murray is that he doesn’t do things the easy way. At 2-0 up and playing exceptional tennis despite the wind-swept conditions, he looked to have the title wrapped up. However, Djokovic is made from stern stuff and was not ready to wave the white flag just yet. The brilliant Serb fought back to level the match at 2-2 with convincing 6-2 and 6-3 set wins. The Murray fans began to fear the worse, was their man again going to fall at the final hurdle? No! There is a new found sense of purpose to Murray since the Wimbledon defeat and he showed he is now truly amongst the elite of men’s tennis by winning the final set 6-2 to take the title. The 23,000 crowd in the Arthur Ashe stadium went wild as Murray became a nailed on certainty to win the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award. What a year for the Scot who became the first British man to reach the Wimbledon singles final in 74 years, the first to win an Olympic gold medal at tennis in 104 years and finally the first to win a Grand Slam singles title in 76 years. All this in the space of two months! TeamKonkura salutes you Sir Andrew Murray.


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