US Open Tennis Andy Murray 2012 - Tennis Review

US Open Tennis Andy Murray 2012

By Piers Newbery BBC Sport

From leaving home for Spain at the age of 15, to sacking the highest-paid tennis coach in the world at the age of 20, to sticking with a much-criticised game plan through some dark moments, Andy Murray has done it his way.

Few sports expose a player's psyche like tennis and few sportsmen undergo such a brutal examination as Britain's leading tennis hope every summer. Smiling might not come naturally to Murray, but seven years of being taken to task over his demeanour, personality, style of play and nationality were unlikely to make his disposition any sunnier.

Murray enjoyed the advantage of growing up 200 yards from a tennis club in Dunblane as the son of a national coach - but the talent was always there. His first coach from the age of 11, Leon Smith, said he had never seen a kid with such ability.

Andy Murray factfile

  • Junior career: Orange Bowl champion 1999, French Open semi-final 2004, US Open champion 2004
  • Turned pro: 2005
  • First ATP win: Beat Santiago Ventura 6-1 6-2 at Queen's Club, 2005
  • First ATP title: San Jose, 2006 (beat Lleyton Hewitt in final)
  • First Masters Series title: Cincinnati, 2008 (Beat Novak Djokovic in final)
  • ATP singles titles: 23
  • Doubles titles: 2
  • Australian Open best: Runner-up (2010, 2011)
  • French Open best: Semi-finalist (2011)
  • Wimbledon best: Runner-up (2012)
  • US Open: Champion (2012)

Murray won the prestigious Orange Bowl title aged 12 and three years later, unimpressed by an offer from a British academy in London, left Scotland for the Sanchez-Casal Academy in Barcelona.

That signalled a frosty relationship with the LTA that has endured to this day. When asked in the past if he could one day see himself taking up a role with the governing body, a light-hearted interview shuddered to a halt with a thin-lipped, "No."

Relations might thaw over time - his mother, Judy, and former coach, Smith, have taken up senior positions at the LTA in the last 18 months - but Murray is not generally one for changing his mind.

The Barcelona academy's co-founder, Emilio Sanchez Vicario, remembers him as "very quiet and shy when he first arrived", and the young Scot kept himself to himself, focusing all his energy on learning from the country that was in the process of taking over the men's game.

The relentless hitting drills honed his talent and instilled a structure and discipline that remains to this day in Murray's punishing training regime. Significant defeats are nearly always followed with the Murray mantra - must work harder, must get fitter.

Hard work and pure ability took him very close to the top of the game, rising from 375 in the world on his 18th birthday to the top 10 before the end of his teens. A brilliant backhand, natural court craft and almost supernatural anticipation on the return, allied to his rapidly improving movement, made the Scot too much for almost all-comers. He beat Lleyton Hewitt for his first ATP tournament win in San Jose in 2006 and began to rack up the titles.



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