Send him back over the boarder and put adrains wall back up.

- Please_stop_looking

ANDY MURRAY IS A DICKHEAD!!

Thanks for your time.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sol/shared/spl/hi/academy/pdf/masks/pdf/bbc_academy_murray.pdf

- 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.

(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)

“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.)

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.

No, I don’t buy it either.

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?

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.

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.

Still can’t take team sports seriously!

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?