Andy Murray ought to do himself a favour and give up tennis.
It doesn’t suit him.
Murray won a lot of admirers when he openly wept in front of
millions when interviewed by Sue Barker after Roger Federer beat him in the
Men’s Final at Wimbledon yesterday. Murray has a reputation as something of a
boor; to see him so vulnerable presented another side to him. The problem is
that it’s a side that proves he will never be big time in professional sports.
Murray is big and strong and is doing all he can to be as
good at tennis as he can possibly be. But he’s not as naturally gifted as
Federer – very few are. To bridge that gap, he has to make up in application
what he lacks in gifts.
Roy Keane is the perfect example of making up in application
what he lacked in gifts. Keane was able to focus all his strength and will to
the task at hand. Players who were more talented but less determined wilted
when they realised in their hearts that they would never want to win as badly
as Keane did. That’s what made Roy Keane a champion.
Michael Jordan was considerably more gifted as a basketball
player than Keane was as a soccer player but, like Keane, it was Jordan’s
competitive fury that brought him from great to transcendental. In his speech
on the occasion of his induction into the NBA Hall of Fame, Jordan listed all the slights he felt he’d received
as a player. They all still burned him, ten years after he hung up his Nikes
for the final time.
Murray can’t match Federer for talent, but neither can he
bridge the gap with mental resolve, as Keane or Jordan did. It’s not in him.
Murray will gain kudos for being a man who openly expressed his emotion rather
than bottling it up, but what exactly was he crying over?
If he was crying because he felt sorry for himself, because
he realised that he will never be as good as Federer, because expectations have
been placed on him from a young age that he feels he cannot possibly deliver,
then the best thing he could do for himself would be to walk away. Life is
tough enough to live by your own lights. Why crush yourself for someone else’s?
Maybe yesterday was a Rubicon for Andy Murray. Maybe Murray's sluiced it all out and will return a harder, steelier man. But if it wasn’t, if
Andy Murray’s tears are an indication of what competing at the highest level is
doing to him, he ought to walk away. He broke down after he lost to Federer in
Australia two years ago too. He needs to address this.
Bobby Riggs is famous for his Battle of the Sexes match
against Billie Jean King, but he has three Grand Slam titles to his name (one
Wimbledon, two US Opens). Riggs's chief talent was his brain – he was able to win
by playing his opponent for a sucker.
If Bobby Riggs were alive today, he would be on the phone to
Andy Murray this very morning to bet Murray one gazillion dollars that Riggs
could beat him using frying pans for racquets. And Riggs would collect his bet,
because in Murray Riggs would see someone whom he could mentally crush like a bug.
In competitive sports, you are predator or you are prey.
Andy Murray should decide, for his own sake and not that of Ivan Lendl or his
mother or Simon Fuller, which he is and make the appropriate decision. He’s
only twenty-five years old. He has his whole life to live. Who needs the grief?
