It’s come to my attention that FT made a post about loathing Andy Murray awhile ago. Now, not to completely blow apart my role as FreakyTrigger’s resident hate-filled, bile-spewing attack dog but I feel I have to dispute this.
Having only traumatic memories of being expected to ‘hit’ a small moving, spherical object with a ‘racquet’ on a judgemental arena that could only be called a ‘court’ by the most draconian of 2000AD’s creations, I am not much interested in tennis. Apparently it’s supposed to be fun or something- I am deeply unsure about this, what with the way you had to apparently ‘volley’ ‘shots’ at people. Surely that’s the sort of thing you’re meant to get out of your system a normal way, like Call of Duty or Saints Row 3?
But (and to gleefully and without regret peel another layer off the supposed geezaesthetics here) I am someone who has lived in London whilst the not-exactly-offensive-to-the-eye posters of Roger Federer in his undercrackers have been on buses. Sure, there have been times when I’ve felt like I should leap in front of children and shield their eyes with my hands upon seeing the number 23 approaching but as someone easily old enough to appreciate all that; gosh, yes. 10 of whatever he’s selling- the Jungfrau or Toblerone or something, right?
Home-grown tennis totty, though, has not exactly been in abundance.
Some people at my school did give fancying Tim Henman an honest go but even the most tennis enthused were forcing it a bit. And realistically, I have never -until about a week ago- thought about Andy Murray in a way Like That. Probably because I thought he was about four years younger than me, when in fact he is apparently the same age. But also some sort of transformation does seem to have occurred, of late- from a BBC newswoman who was panned back to the other day, looking somewhat dry-mouthed after a bit of Murray doing… some kind of a thing that makes his waist look rather exciting on a recap clip, to the unexpected close ups of what Tumblr would certainly describe as ‘dat ass’ during the final.
He takes you by surprise, since no one tends to talk about how uh, wildly hott he is. But gosh. Gosh. I mean, without wishing to potentially incur the wrath of photograph copyright holders, just have a gawk at this grid of buffness. The, uh. The effort and sportsmanship and dedication to fitness and uh. The, uh, the elegance of his game. Really, uhm, fluid. Oh, forget it- I don’t care what he’s doing with the racquet, I would hit that with the speed of a Wimbledon finals serve.
Bing offers me, while image searching for “Andy Murray,” the suggested strings: “andy murray bvlge,” “andy murray c0ck” and “andy murray shirt off” -oh Bing, default search option on this, my centre-of-an-open-plan-office PC; can you not? But yet, how well you know me. That’s the kind of invasive presumption about my sexuality that I’d only expect after Google tapped into my AO3 reading habits. So clearly it’s not just me.
One of the awesome things about the ‘Lympics last year was that even if you didn’t give a stuff about sprinting previously, Johnny Peacock is err fairly watchable and Aled Davies’ discus technique is much easier to study than a wireframe diagram. And Madison di Rosario’s burning glare is uhm. Compelling. Compelling sports, they were.
Clearly sports should not be about hotness, definitely not performance-hotness (of the variety Victoria’s Secret models exhibit; it’s a variety of physical competition but not one to apply to marathon running) and if the gross reactions to Marion Bartoli’s win are anything to go by, we still need to hammer this message home to a lot of people. But- and I know, because I joined an athletics club last year for exactly this reason- there’s a lot to be said for uhm, providing an ‘in’ to being interested in sport for those of us who were previously feeling moderately grumpy about having to pay attention to tennis.
Who am I kidding? I’m just justifying being a gross old internet pervert. But if that’s what you are too, then hey; good pickings.