Andy Murray appreciation thread - your favourite achievements

[MrInvisible]

Sadly it looks like we are getting very close to the day Andy Murray finally calls time on his career. It has been sad to me to see the physical struggles he's overcome in recent years, with little in the way of reward. Keeping that motivation going must have been tough for him.

However, I wanted to celebrate the many highlights of his career and invite everyone to select their favourite moments from his career. For me, the following come to mind:

1) The Davis Cup win - fantastic achievement for GB, and with the challenging older format too. He really gave his all, and helped lift the other players, and of course combined so well to win the crucial doubles rubber with his brother.
2) Olympics Gold 2012 - a very confident win against Federer in front of a buzzing home crowd at Wimbledon
3) Wimbledon 2013 - first British winner since Fred Perry in the 1930s! It is forgotten how much a big deal this was and Murray managed to do it too against nemesis Djokovic.

I also think he has left a legacy, inspired new generations of kids and broken down barriers - before he came along British tennis was still pretty stuffy (and still is in some quarters) but he helped normalise it. I also think he has helped inspire some of the other British players who came along after e.g. Edmund, Evans (not counting Norrie as he was product of another country really) along with Raducanu.

So let's hear it for Murray, he played in probably the toughest era in the sport and still achieved a lot - well done.

[sirfredperry]

Lady Perry and I were on holiday in Eastbourne when we heard a young Scot called Andy Murray, just 18 years old, had won his first match on the main tour.

We'd seen he'd been the number one junior in the world and I wondered then whether we were witnessing the start of a great career. A couple of weeks later Andy was winning matches at Wimbledon and took Nalbandian to five sets on the middle Saturday. Only fitness had defeated him.

Even at this stage it was apparent that Andy had great court craft. He looked like he just KNEW how to play tennis. The rest is British tennis history.

MrI above quite rightly picks out the high spots of the Murray story. One, early, match that stands out for me was a Wimbledon meeting with Gasquet. Andy was playing horribly, was two sets down and Gasquet served for the match in the third. But Andy came back and won in five - paving the way for his some epic fightbacks over the years.

His fighting spirit has never been better demonstrated than his determination to come back from hip surgery. His love of the game and his competitive spirit spurred him on to continue the quest to get the most out of his body and career he could. Alas, although the spirit was willing the flesh was only too weak and at 37 he is finally having to do something he never did on court - concede defeat.

But for the others in the Big Four, Andy would conceivably have taken his GS title haul into double figures. He lost FIVE times in the AO final alone. Only once, against Raonic at Wimbledon in 2016, did he face a non-Big Three player in a Slam final.

Andy will go down as one of Britain's greatest sports players. Some may go further and declare him THE greatest.

[dummy_half]

Undoubtedly Britain's greatest tennis player of the Open era - the game is so different to the Fred Perry days as to be an unfair comparison. Unfortunate that his career ran in absolute parallel with Nadal and Djokovic, and mostly overlapped with Federer - taking 3 GS titles, two Olympics, a good assortment of MS1000 titles including on clay, and #1 rankings against 3 of the best 5 or so players of all time is extraordinary.

You can reasonably debate whether he was the least player of the big 4, or fell just outside a big 3, but his record puts him clearly best of the rest if you look at how many times he went deep in tournaments and found one of the other 3 just too good.

I alos remember the Nalbandian match - iirc, Nalbanian had reached the Wimbledon final the previous year, and Andy gave him all the trouble he could handle for 4 and a half sets. And this was while Andy was still developing physically. It was clear then we had a player with a chance to surpass the achievements of Tim Henman as the best modern player - something he did by miles.

[No name Bertie]

Some Previous:

https://www.606v2.com/t66995-thanks-for-the-memories-andy
https://www.606v2.com/t68324-andy-murray-announces-intention-to-retire-this-season

Historically he was part of the top four era and no amount of hindsight re-evaluation will change that. Regularly reaching the semi-finals in grand-slam, his Masters record, his total number of tournaments won etc.

[Soul Requiem]

It's going to be hard to judge Murray fairly in the future, the best gauge of his ability is probably at Masters level, he sits at number five on the all time list despite having to compete with 1-3 slap bang in the middle of their best years (give or take a few for Federer). He got to at least the quarter final of 28 grand slams, I would wager good money that at around 20 of those losses were against the aforementioned triumvirate.

[dummy_half]

It's going to be hard to judge Murray fairly in the future, the best gauge of his ability is probably at Masters level, he sits at number five on the all time list despite having to compete with 1-3 slap bang in the middle of their best years (give or take a few for Federer). He got to at least the quarter final of 28 grand slams, I would wager good money that at around 20 of those losses were against the aforementioned triumvirate.

I can't remember the exact stat, but of players to have reached 10 or more slam finals, Andy's the only one with a losing w-l record (3-8, with 3 losses to Federer and 5 losses to Djokovic) - iirc, everyone else to have reached 10 GS finals has at leas 6 or 7 titles. From 2011 to 2016 he had a record that would have put him as the dominant player of the time in most other eras - one slam missed, one 4th round and all the others at least a quarter final. 2011-2012 one slam win, two losing finals, 4 semi finals and one quarter final - this only got him to #3 in the rankings because he was up against such dominant opponents.

I recall something posted a few years ago that tried to rank the best players of the open era based on GS and MS1000 or equivalent records - Murray was somewhere around 15th, so obviously not in the GOAT discussions, but on the fringes of what would be considered an all time great.

[sirfredperry]

Now the Murray retirement has been confirmed, Daily Telegraph chief sports writer Oliver Brown has ranked Andy as Britain's greatest-ever sportsman.

These things can be argued about until the cows come home, and I would certainly put Andy way out in front as Britain's GOAT tennis star. Oliver Brown had Bobby Charlton second in his list. There are some who might have put Charlton at number one and I reckon the Man Untd legend would be in most people's top two or three.

You might quibble with Brown's choice of Lewis Hamilton third, Daley Thompson fourth and Ian Botham fifth. Few, though, would have any problem applauding Brown's summing up of Murray - "His entire career unfolded like one long, glorious howl of defiance."

[Henman Bill]

I must admit it had never occurred to me that he might be the greatest. I'm struggling to think of someone bigger, I don't think any of the above are bigger.

I too remember the Gasquet match. I think Gasquet was possibly the better player at that time, but Murray was already mentally stronger.

My positive Murray memories would be
---beating Federer in masters series in about 2008-2009 more than once
---down the line passes on the run
---improving forehand and second serve in 2012 to get good enough to win a slam
---losing 7-5 to Djokovic in the 2012 AO SF - but it was a good performance and it showed he was knocking on the door, and it took peak Djokovic going into overdrive at 5-5 to beat him, showed he was getting closer
---beating Federer easily in the Olympics final, a very good performance
---getting to no 1 - I predicted he would do it a year or two before when he wasn't doing very well and nobody believed me

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