I Hate Andy Murray
 |
| Andy Murray chastises a tennis ball |
During Wimbledon’s inaugural set of night-time tennis on Monday night, played under what’s become the most famous roof since the Sistine Chapel, I found that I loathe every particle of Andy Murray.
Now, I realize Andy Murray is a professional athlete. Macho theatrics and being as interesting as a pile of firewood come with the territory. But Wimbledon is not just a collection of freakishly fit young adults whacking things between each other, it’s a drama, and in this drama he pushes buttons I didn’t even know I possessed.
I can’t stand his super-psyched mom.
I can’t stand his periwinkle-eyed girlfriend.
I can’t stand the way he throws his wrist bands into the crowd, like Jimmy Page blessing his fans with a plectrum.
I cringe at his whiny tantrums after every mis-hit, the snarled barks at himself to “FOCUS!” (I would have thought focusing was a given.)
And the fierce fist-pumps that accompany every single point he wins — and he wins a lot of them — are tiresome and bathetic.
People whose opinions on tennis I respect say that despite all this they love his game. And it’s true that he will occasionally dink in a nifty drop-shot that leaves his opponent basically pissed off at him (which is the default reaction to Andy Murray anyway as far as I’m concerned). And he does run after every ball like a singed hyena. And yes, he’s Scottish, so I guess that’s something, though it’s difficult to hear it through the braying monotony of his voice.
But mostly I see a guy who is content to hit soft backhand slices at you until you lose all zest for life and find yourself strategizing excuses to forfeit the match out of sheer boredom — feign knee injury? eat some amphetamines? say that you actually really need to call your sister right now cause it was her birthday yesterday and you forgot? — and boom your shot goes wide.
You look across the net and there’s Andy. Fist pump! BARK! C’MON!!
Elisha Sessions in FT /TMFD • 3,278 views
there is no ayn rand in sledging
“Every time I fucked Ayn Rand she gave me a biscuit”
Re: Andy Murray.
He really is an annoying tosser,I’d love to see him lose just to hear what excuses he came up with in that annoying droning voice of his that makes watching paint dry seem like an extreme sport.
I think Andy Murray is the most loathsome thing to represent “British” sport this guy is not “British” he is Scottish, most of the English cannot stand his conderscending and patronising swagger and mannerisms. The other thing is all of the idiots dresed up is union flag clothing (made in China) looking like the Chavs they are jumping on the badwaggon of some nasty guy. The guy is Scottish, just like David Coulthard and Colin McRae. They do not represent the English or the Welsh or the Irish. The notion of British is convoluted rubbish and Anrew Murray is the prime example of Media bandwagoning and “I think I am the best” Murray.
Come on Roddick – almost there (I hope)
Andy Roddick’s sparkling personality wins the day.
Go Murray!
Yes, he’s out!
No more silly whining. No more super-psyched mom. No more unnecessary hawk-eye challenges. And luckily no more fist-pumping every single one of your opponents’ unforced errors.
Thank you! I live watching tennis but cannot stand watching someone fist pump and yell c’mon! after every shot! It’s beyond annoying. Luckily Mr. Roddick has taken care of the problem this go around!
22, I’m not sure that Bob Dylan would agree with you…Andrew Ridgeley might
in sport though, you are absolutely right.
i fukiin lovee andy murray ur juz a fukiin idoit man go 2 hell
Response to raashi :
You may love Andy Murray all you want but stop ramming him and all this fake crap down throats of those who want neutral and impartial coverage of Tennis and other associated sports on the BBC. This is because we all pay into the licence fee those who like, love, loathe hate and those who just do not care. So keep your selfish attitude to yourself. Some will hate him just as much as he is quite stupidly loved, by you idiots.
You don’t get to #3 in the tennis world rankings by simply hitting soft backhand slices.
you dont even know him, how can you judge his mum and girlfriend?
I agree you cant get to number 3 by hitting soft backhands.. hes a great player and most of the haters have just swallowed the media crap. I dont understand why you hate him.
yes he is not as charming as federer but he is only 22 and there are not many 22 year olds able to deal with the amount of pressure he has on him.
I love Murray.
To Annabel,
There are tonnes of people under 22 who have more pressure then him.
brilliant piece about andy muray- i cant stand him either-hes about as likable as a mouldy piece of cheap white bread
Ah that was really enjoyable seeing him get spanked by Federer. Hope he enjoyed the tennis lesson given to him in the 1st 2 sets. Can’t stand the abhorrent Scottish twat.
I agree with Onion Salad, there really is nothing better than seeing him getting a good spanking by a real classy gifted player XD
Now hopefully he’ll bomb out of Wimbledon early and we won’t have to endure the shitstorm of hype we had last year.
do any of u hav a clue about tennis? talk about the games and not your predudices.
got to ask why u hate murray? is it cos he’s not english, and doesn’t deserve in your small minds to represent the UK. at least he’s into the semi’s unlike the english football team (payback is a bitch) and yes he might get gubbed in the next round, but at least he will have got further than ur (world beaters) ha ha
I tend to dislike Murray for the very reasons given above, but “hate” the chap? Has he wronged me personally? No. Has his actions on court annoyed me? Yes. Has he said anything that offended me? No.
Will Murray get past Nadal?
No.
Will that make me dislike him all the more?
No.
If by some miracle, he beats Nadal and makes it to Sunday’s final, will he have my support?
Yes.
Who would be a churl?
Hahaha I really like Murray but he must never win Wimbledon, I’m behind Djokovic (sadly not literally).
Still can’t take team sports seriously!
why must he never win wimbledon? i thought he was british, always being told to support the home countries but that appears to only be the case if you are english.
The writer of the original post is from Tennessee, mirran
The great thing about individual sports like tennis is that there’s no reason or rhyme to cheering based on nationalism. I like Murray for his game and have happily cheered him on at the AO/RG/USO, but a) I like Djokovic more, b) the press idiocy, already hard to take, would reach unprecedented levels in the event of Murray winning Wimbledon.
I think the people who usually cheer for British players but don’t cheer for Murray because he’s Scottish (and disguise it by blaming his personality, whatever the fuck they think they mean by that) are racists who should be beheaded, though.
Lex seems to be nearest the mark (#46 notwithstanding) in this rather unfortunate thread.
If Rafa beats Andy tomorrow – please note the “if,” #45; we do not possess the ability to see into the future, no one knows who is going to win the match until it has been played, and what you should have said was “Do I believe that Murray will get past Nadal?” – then will Andy get all the post-World Cup opprobrium spilt on him? I hardly think it likely; as usual he will be termed “Scotland’s Andy Murray” if he loses and “Britain’s Andy Murray” if he wins but overall there will be no net loss to the British sporting psyche. There will be the usual grumblings and cackles imbued with the casual racism and not-so-casual snobbery seen elsewhere throughout these comments if he fails to beat the world’s top-ranked tennis player in a semi-final but more probably, as with England FC, there will be resigned shrugs, although, unlike England FC, there is also the saving and hopeful probability that he will do at least as well next year.
Ultimately, what Murray haters can’t stand is that Murray’s in the semi-final tomorrow, and they’re not. Or, to put it another way, the person they really can’t stand is themselves, and Murray, like the England team, will be a useful conduit for projecting their self-hatred onto a convenient target.
Punctum I assume you’ve seen this! http://andymurrayometer.com/
I have no interest in tennis at all – don’t know enough about the sport to follow either the play or the players, beyond the occasional polite conversation with my father-in-law. As such I don’t hate Andy Murray.
Agree that most of the randoms on this thread are less likeable than AM, but I’ve never really bought the “all hatred of success is self-hatred” line – would it apply to (say) the Goss twins, or Simon Cowell?
Punctum @50 Point taken. The “will” is a subconscious reaction to someone I know banging on about destiny, because he wasn’t at school on the day of the Dunblane shooting. “He was spared so he could win Wimbledon”.
No, I don’t buy it either.
well, i like andy murray all the better for his slight grumpiness and occasional refusal to play along with media idiocy (in particular, *of course* he doesn’t support england!), will certainly be cheering him along this afternoon and am baffled and depressed by all the henmaniacs who (however they dress it up) don’t like him because he’s scottish and not (obviously) middle class. but i’ve got to say, much as it’s a thing i’ve heard claimed a million times, and much as I accept that britishness can be quite elastic according to convenience (though it’s not just english people who do this surely), i have NEVER ONCE heard a commentator or anyone else do the British if he wins, Scottish if he loses thing cited by punctum at 50. Not about Andy Murray and not about anyone else either.
there’s certainly some metaphorical truth in the idea, but it drives me mad to hear it repeated so often as an actual fact about how things work, when as far as I can tell it just isn’t.
having said all that, i’ve just read a guardian article titled ‘from whinger to winner’. aaargh! Murray is described as preparing for the semi “with the diligence of a presbyterian minister” and is (i can hardly bring myself to type) at one point referred to as “wee Andy”. christ.
1st paragraph of Simon Barnes’ article in The Times today, begins “British today, Scottish tomorrow…” he goes on to explain it away as a “journalistic joke” but unfortunately for Murray, the genie is out of the bottle. Punctum was right, and it’s an uncomfortable truth to face up to. If he fails today, he’s going to be pilloried by the press for having the temerity to lose to the World #1.
I want Murray to lose because I really like Nadal a lot and find him an inspiring character both as player and personality. Where does self-loathing fit into this?
A PERTINENT QUOTE from someone called Frank Leboeuf who is apparently a footballer:
“In tennis there is no one to help you. You have to look after yourself. It is a game for adults. Football is a game for those who do not want to take responsibility.”
BANG OTM.
(I’ve never really encountered the “British when he wins, Scottish when he loses” thing with Murray; there’s more of a simmering – not resentment, but a self-congratulatory and almost moralistic refusal to warm to him in place already, most explicitly manifest in the “anyone but Murray” thing that self-appointed wags (not WAGs) think is a play on his “anyone but England” joke from years ago.) (All of this is insofar as anyone gives a shit about tennis. The past fortnight has been DISAPPOINTING in that regard.)
Lex you should read C.L.R.James’s book “Beyond a Boundary” on — among other things — the politics and ethics and aesthetics of this issue (the dialectics of the collective and the individual in sport): because it’s a giant big tangly fascinating issue and James writes beautifully clearly about it
(obviously caribbean-born and of a certain era James favoured cricket rather than football or tennis or whatever: but he’s someone everyone should read anyway…) (I met him once swank swank)
Racism on the front of Saturday’s Sun and Mirror, as expected. Not that too many people were really bothered one way or the other – they still want The Right Sort Of Chap to win, however many centuries that takes. Henman had a better opportunity than most, except he came up against the brick wall that was Pete Sampras, and when he did have his one big chance in the 2001 semis it rained and wild card Ivanisovic played the rain better and also seemed to want it more. Then again I think Andy would probably benefit from wanting the title less, since the more you struggle to win, the more of a struggle it becomes.
Is it just bad luck that the women’s game seems way more open (in terms of a range of ppl winning grand slam events) than the mens? If he’d been Abby Murray he’d have won it by now surely?
Dunno, right now Abby would have the Williamses in her way. It’s a question of whether there’s a dominant force in the sport at any given time, and Murray looks like he’s being squeezed between the imperial phases (to borrow a theme from Popular) of Federer and Nadal. Interesting list in this morning’s paper showing that the all-time top five women have won more Grand Slams than the top man – showing if anything that the women’s game has historically been slightly less open:
Men’s titles: Federer 16; Sampras 14; Emerson 12; Laver and Borg 11 (though Laver would probably have been out of sight had it not been for the politics of the sport in the 60s); Tilden 10; Nadal and five others 8.
Women’s titles: Court 24; Graf 22; Wills Moody 19; Evert and Navratilova 18; Serena 13; Lenglen and King 12.
@60 – yes and no.
- Yes, the WTA in 2010 is going through an unprecedented period of parity, while the men’s game has a very solid hierarchy which shifts only incrementally – the inverse of what’s historically been the case. Lots of possible reasons why this is now the case that I could write an essay on.
- Doesn’t necessarily mean that an Abby Murray would have won a Slam by now; the parity on the WTA is partly caused by up-and-coming prospects over the past few years either flaming out completely (Ana Ivanovic, Nicole Vaidisova, Tatiana Golovin) or failing to deliver at elite level at all (Victoria Azarenka, Caroline Wozniacki). Azarenka and Wozniacki (and Jelena Jankovic) “should” have been the prime new-generation candidates to have taken advantage of any parity, especially at Roland Garros, and they haven’t. It’s likely that the WTA will be defined in the foreseeable future by big runs by solid journeywomen veterans with experience on their side (eg, Francesca Schiavone winning RG) or inconsistent hard-hitters who happen to be “on” their game but aren’t necessarily regular Top 10 players (Aravane Rezai, maybe Petra Kvitova), rather than teenage supernovae.
- Would an Abby Murray have developed to the level that Andy Murray has, given the situations they emerged into? Andy Murray (and Novak Djokovic) landed in a top 10 dominated by Federer and Nadal, who’d both set the bar impossibly high. Which actually benefited them – they had to work doubly hard to get level with Roger and Rafa, and by constantly playing them they learnt how to beat them. This didn’t happen on the WTA: while Roger and Rafa were dominating, their female equivalents – the Williamses and Belgians – were dropping in and out of the game, part-timing their way through years, retiring and unretiring. So the equivalent up-and-comers never got a chance to hone their games to the level necessary to beat them, and backed into elite rankings and big tournament wins without developing the mental strength commensurate with such accomplishments. Hence flaking out whenever required to actually play an on-form Williams or Belgian in a major.
- Picking up the first point, I don’t know how much Andy Murray needs a more open field. He still leads his head-to-head with Federer, and has beaten Nadal and Djokovic enough times that game-wise, it shouldn’t be considered beyond him. It’s his mind that has failed him at the Slams, for some reason not quite bringing his best tennis when it matters. So in one sense he doesn’t need a more open field, cuz he has the game to beat anyone in the current field; but in another, it wouldn’t matter how open the field was if he becomes tentative and passive in Slam SFs and Fs.
For those who wish to haunt my waking hours, I give you this Andy Murray mask from the BBC, as a PDF:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sol/shared/spl/hi/academy/pdf/masks/pdf/bbc_academy_murray.pdf
For all those tennis fans out there. Please read the following carefully.
ANDY MURRAY IS A DICKHEAD!!
Thanks for your time.
I found myself utterly loathing Andy Murray.
He’s a dick, he has that type of face that you just want too punch with all your might. He’s a show off and is very boring too watch. Also lets be honest, he’s Scottish, subtitles please! Just an annoying little f**ker really, Nadal for the win, fuck murray. Lets pray that he breaks a leg, arm neck etc.
- Please_stop_looking
Murray is a vile cretin. Ugly beyond words. That large adams apple he has is just eugh. sweaty arm bands into the crowd? I’d wang them straight back at the arrogant little cunt. Keep your dirty scottish sweat. He has a fairly hot gf though, but lets be honest if he couldn’t swing a twnnis bat he’d still be a virgin. The way he walks around the court acting like some kind of demi god, thinking he looks the biz. Like he believes he’s a hit with the ladies. Makes my skin crawl. And not because he’s scottish! Yes scottish people are the lower class of the british isles, and in general they are annoyingly pale, but they have Alan hanson, and kenny dalgliesh. Awesome people, even though they are scottish. Being scottish withoutbeing a cunt is possible under certain circumstances, but even if andy murray shit gold i’d still think he’s a cunt.
Send him back over the boarder and put adrains wall back up.
Tennis bat?
he is quite simply a scottish cunt