Ever since Scottish teen-ager Andy Murray popped onto the international radar just before Wimbledon last year, we’ve watched—bemused—at the amount of attention lavished on his every move by our fellow press pariahs in the United Kingdom.
Granted, Murray started 2005 ranked No. 514 and vaulted up to 65 by year’s end. He’s an extremely gifted, promising player—something that the UK struggles mightily—and largely unsuccessfull—to produce, despite being the wellspring of the game and home of Wimbledon.
Still . . . there have been days when each of the major British papers—big-time outlets like The Times of London, The Telegraph, The Daily Mail—has featured a big Murray feature, even though Murray wasn’t even playing in a tournament that week. You know the headlines: MURRAY KEEN TO DO WELL AT WIMBLEDON . . . MURRAY LOSES TOENAIL CLIPPER AT GYM . . . . It’s a measure of how thirsty the U. .is for a Grand Slam contender, now that Tim Henman is past it.
By contrast, when Pete Sampras was in the last stages of his drive to become the only man ever to finish No. 1 for five years in a row, not a single American newspaper saw fit to have a reporter in Europe cover the story.
Well, Murray lashed out at the press after his first-round loss to Juan Ignacio Chela at the Australian Open the other day, and my only reaction was, “What took you so long?”
The sheer volume of press that Murray has generated has been the source of enormous pressure; I’m amazed it took so long for the issue to burst. The Brits have to be really careful. I’m not exactly the nurturing type, but I say, cool it—Murray is just a kid. It’s idiotic to suggest, as one adamant newsman did, that because Murray has largely received good press, he shouldn’t complain or feel pressured.
The naked fact is that the press has been trying to rush this kid to superstardom and he’s nowhere near ready for it in any sense—not as a player, not as a man. The sad thing is that on this accelerated timeline, the Britpress is going to start running those “Is Boy Wonder Andy the Real Thing?” stories any minute now.
That’s how it works with the competitive media. Stories take on lives of their own, and they demand that the authors keep leapfrogging onward, beating each other to the next predictable turn in the plot. Of course, the press doesn’t set out to build people up only to tear them down, but so what? That drunken driver didn't set out to kill a family of four when he stopped at the bar for a few pops, either. The result is dictated by the modus operandi.
I wish Murray lots of luck. He seems like a good kid.
I was sad to see Henman go out early as well. I don’t care what they say about “Gentleman Tim”—he’s a decent, what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of guy. His demise Down Under did inspire one FPP to produce a gem of the poisoned pen genre—a form at which the Brits, who adore dry humor, are great.